DACA

“It is preposterous to claim that justice for immigrants isn’t central to Catholic teaching,” wrote Rogers. “It comes directly from Jesus Himself in Matthew 25, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food … a stranger and you welcomed me.’ Immigrants and refugees are precisely the strangers we must welcome. This isn’t Catholic partisanship. The Bible is clear: welcoming immigrants is indispensable to our faith.”

Enough of the church voted for a president that made such a decision among others, and those same churches, those same Christians, still uphold those decisions. As people who wish for a better America, we are called to remind one another that we belong to each other, no matter what race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

We are calling on the people of faith to stand with our immigrant brothers and sisters and tell Congress to the DREAM Act — and we are inviting DACAmented youth to share your stories. We will be publish these at Sojourners and sharing them with our members of Congress.

Gabe Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, is urging evangelicals to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has given about 800,000 young immigrants protection from deportation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is set to announce the end of the program with a six-month delay.

Trump received pressure from many conservatives: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other state attorneys general threatened to sue the administration if he didn’t announce an end to the program by Sept. 5, next week. Trump has not been clear about a decision, but during his campaign promised to terminate the program along with all other immigration executive orders by President Obama

Thousands gathered in front of the White House on Tuesday calling on the administration to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the executive action signed by President Barack Obama that protected 800,000 young people from deportation. They were able to receive work permits and stay in the U.S. in exchange for providing their information and going through background checks. Now, DACA is in the hands of the Trump administration — and the program is under threat by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other state-level officials who plan to sue if the Trump administration does not cancel DACA by Sept. 5.

Kelly said in a statement on Thursday he was rescinding the initiative, known as DAPA, because "there is no credible path forward to litigate the currently enjoined policy."

“Even if you’re not a Christian,” Leupold said, it should concern everyone “that we have moved to proto-fascist, race-based decision making.” As much as he sees Trump’s enthusiasm for deportation as a universal source of disquiet, Leupold said that Christians, in particular, should feel compelled to act in light of the Bible’s clear message: “Jesus said, ‘go out and love one another,’ he didn’t say, ‘go and seek racial purity in your community.” The parable of the Good Samaritan, he noted, didn’t include a section where “the Samaritan went up and checked the ID of the guy laying by the side of the road.”

On Nov. 14, in a press conference at the White House, President Obama spoke about the possibility that President-elect Donald Trump may get rid of his executive action "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" (DACA). DACA enables undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before their sixteenth birthday, before June 15, 2007, to remain in the country without fear of deportation and receive a two-year work permit that can be renewed.