Vanderbilt University has joined with 18 other elite universities in filing an amicus brief in lawsuits seeking an injunction against President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, reports the Vanderbilt Hustler, the student newspaper.
Trump announced his decision to end DACA in early September but has given Congress a chance to act. Started by former President Obama with an executive order, the program has granted temporary permission to live and work in the U.S. to young people who immigrated here illegally as children and who meet certain criteria. They can get driver’s licenses and enroll in college.
Numerous groups filed suits challenging Trump’s repeal of the program, including 15 states, the University of California system and a number of DACA students. Filed Nov. 1, Vanderbilt’s friend of the court brief is in support of the suits brought by the University of California Board of Regents, six DACA recipients, the state of California and the city of San Jose.
“It is incredibly important that these talented young people be able to continue to aspire to be scholars and leaders, and contribute greatly to our nation’s communities,” Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos said in a statement. “We stand united with our peers to support efforts that would see the program continue. Closing the door to these students is a mistake that will undermine the strength of our universities and the fabric of our nation.”
Conservative critics of DACA fear that continuing to shield recipients from deportation, and possibly giving them residency or citizenship, would open the door to routinely granting benefits to people who come to the U.S. illegally as minors. However, some Republicans are open to extending the DACA program in exchange for funding for tougher border enforcement.
The other universities that filed amicus briefs are Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, Washington University in St. Louis and Yale University.
We spend millions of dollars around the world trying to make other nations like ours.
If we sent these young people back to their home countries with the Education and Experience they’ve gain here, they would work to change their country into the kind of country we spend millions trying to transform.
They would be the “Peace Corp” we wouldn’t have to support and benefit themselves, their country, and the USA.
Vanderbilt, how far you’ve fallen from the noble ideas of your creation.
Your southern “poison” ivy league will go down the drain along with those northern educational institutions you idolize.
The die was cast and your fate was signed, sealed and delivered when you sold your soul for a pot of the Commodore’s gold.
Vanderbilt has gone down hill – big time. I would never consider sending a child to this college. They train the kids to be law breakers, and then wonder why we have so much crime in America. Send the illegals home.
Hard to believe that Vanderbilt feels compelled, beyond their ability to control themselves, to dive into murky and divisive political waters. Since the funding/support of DACA immigrants programs will never be paid by Vanderbilt it seems like we have another “Noble Cause” the majority of US citizens will disagree with but then we all will be forced to pay for over the next 20 years. All thanks to the idle hands of academicians who have little better to do than try to draw attention to themselves by spending my money, apparently. Perhaps if Vanderbilt University took half of their own endowment fund and offered it up as seed capital for a DACA program I would be more convinced their heart and their wallet, as opposed to mine, were in the same place. And that half, by the way, would be $2,000,000,000 (2 Billion). That amount of money spent in Tennessee by Vanderbilt helping DACA immigrants would certainly catch my attention. What say you, Vanderbilt, are you in?
Typical Vanderbilt action. These universities are not actually “elite” but rather their administrators have their heads so high in the clouds that they are out of touch with the real world. And good gosh, they really do need that additional tuition and fee money to sustain their overpriced faculties and administrators. Folks, do not send your kids to Vanderbilt even if you can afford it.