Story highlights Elizabeth Aranda: Research showed DACA significantly improved mental well-being

If Trump rescinds it, he will be cruelly snatching away hope for the future

Elizabeth Aranda is a professor of sociology at the University of South Florida who researches immigrants' lives. She is the co-author of "Making a Life in Multiethnic Miami: Immigration and the Rise of a Global City." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Students at the University of South Florida, where I teach, are buzzing with excitement as they tackle a new fall semester. As someone who teaches, advises, and mentors students, I enjoy watching them explore and figure out what the term might hold for them. I'm also a sociologist who studies the lives of immigrants. For some of my students, I see that this semester is different. I've been in touch with one student, for example, who is feeling dread and not excitement as she begins her senior year.

Elizabeth Aranda

My student, who probably would prefer I not use her name, is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) -- the two-year reprieve from deportation that, among other things, grants undocumented youth brought to the US as children the right to get identity papers and apply to work legally.

Having heard news that President Donald Trump may rescind DACA in coming days , my student seemed incapable of looking forward to the new school year or having any hope about what education might have in store for her.

The stakes are high if President Trump rescinds DACA. Surely such a decision would not be about hewing to the rule of law, as he recently showed that he has no qualms about actual lawbreakers: after all, he quickly pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt only a month ago.

The truth is, that though Donald Trump may be approaching a DACA decision as yet another chess move in the political game of winning over his base, for many -- likely most -- DACA recipients, the idea that they must once again retreat into the shadows in the only country they've known and from which they may in fact be expelled, fills them with unbearable anxiety.