The Sacramento City Unified School District today issued the following statement regarding the President’s announcement to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to protect undocumented children of immigrants from deportation:

Our district is extremely disappointed by the President’s decision to repeal a promise made to over 800,000 innocent, hard-working Americans brought to this country as young children by their parents. The President’s action today reneges on this country’s commitment to provide these young Americans an equal opportunity to pursue and achieve the American dream.

We believe this decision is extremely short-sighted and ignores the valuable contributions of Dreamers to our society. It will not only serve as a devastating blow to the lives and communities of Dreamers and their families – 200,000 of whom reside in California – it will also negatively impact their employers, our economy and our country if a long-term solution is not adopted by Congress and implemented quickly.

Sacramento City Unified understands the harmful implications of this decision and will advocate for legislation to protect Dreamers. In our district we know there are a number of Dreamer students, as well as teachers and employees. They are valuable members of our community and the SCUSD family. We will not abandon them. Instead, we will join a bipartisan coalition of educators, business and civil rights leaders across the United States to work on a law to protect these valuable members of our community.

Our district was among the first in California to declare itself a Safe Haven school district. In Sacramento City Unified, we welcome all students and employees and we will continue to uphold our commitment to that promise by protecting, advocating and ensuring that all members of the SCUSD family feel safe and welcome in our schools.