Education Policy, Business and Technology

Trump Cancels DACA, Impacting Tens of Thousands of Students and Teachers

Education Week: President Donald Trump will end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that gives protection to an estimated 800,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the order to end DACA Tuesday morning at the U.S. Department of Justice. The decision leaves the undocumented residents, an undetermined number of whom work and learn in the nation's K-12 schools, in a state of limbo. The Washington-based Migration Policy Institute estimates 250,000 school-age children have become DACA-eligible since President Barack Obama began the program in 2012. The Trump administration's decision could also affect the lives of children born in the United States. Millions of students in the nation's public and private schools are the children of undocumented immigrants, the Washington-based Pew Research Center estimates. The announcement drew widespread condemnation from K-12 leaders and education associations from across the country, from Washington and New York to Los Angeles and Denver. "The mission of public schools is to create opportunity—not for some children, but for all.

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