In lieu of events that have happened this past week, one pressing matter and a hot button topic to even touch, is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or better known as DACA. What is DACA? "DACA provided certain illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of sixteen a period of deferred action and eligibility to request employment authorization." Many people have only heard of DACA but have no idea of what it really is about and the ignorance to the significance, coupled with prejudice against DACA is just astounding.

DACA was established in June 2012 by Former President Barack Obama. The Department of Homeland Security, through the issuance of a memorandum on June 15, 2012, began accepting applications on August 15, 2012. Applications were on a case-by-case basis. The qualifications to enter the DACA program is as follows:

• Individuals have arrived at the United States before the age of 16
• Have continuously resided in the US without legal status since June 15, 2007
• Be less than 31 years of age as of June 15, 2012
• Currently enrolled in school, have graduated high school or obtained a GED or be an honorably discharged veteran
• Have not been convicted of a felony and pose no threat to national security or public safety

However, DACA is not a form of amnesty or immunity and neither is it a path to citizenship. This much is understood among most, if not all DACA persons. The program grants the ability to work legally and pay taxes but no eligibility for welfare, food stamps, social security income, or financial aid. Basically, there are no freebies available to DACA individuals, contrary to what the majority think or claim to know about DACA.

For those that have a severely misconstrued concept of DACA, let's be clear about one thing: the 800,000 DACA individuals pay taxes. In the last few years the DACA has been running, they have made a contribution of an estimated $2 million dollars in state and local taxes. Here's a fun fact: "DACA-eligible individuals pay on average 8.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes. Their effective tax rate is higher than the average rate paid by the top 1% of taxpayers in state and local taxes of just 5.4 percent and is on par with the average rate paid of 9.4 percent paid by the middle 20 percent of taxpayers. "

So, where is this so-called DACA individuals are leechers? They don't have access to any welfare or food stamps or any social security benefits. Since 2012, they've been pretty much paying for YOUR precious freebies. But, of course, don't feel guilty at all. They're taking jobs away from you somehow. I mean, if you want to be the delivery boy/girl for Chinese food or pizza, by all means, do so. If you want to be the one in the kitchen in the back of a restaurant washing the dishes and keeping maintenance of the place, go right ahead. Because they're taking your jobs, right? Okay then. Because somehow, some way, they magically have the jobs you want. Has there been any sort of consideration that maybe, just maybe, they have the requirements and knowledge for the job? Probably not.

Just for the purpose of this article, I took a peek of some comments through Facebook about DACA. Trust me, I already knew it was going to be bad and it wasn't surprising either. But I wasn't prepared to lose that much brain cells along the way; I'm pretty sure I lost some IQ points just reading the comments. I just couldn't get over the sheer ignorance, not to mention how severely derogatory and abhorrent these individuals who call themselves "Americans" got. I could go through the dictionary and still not find a single word to appropriately describe these people and what comes out of their mouths.

**I'm not even making this up. These are legit screenshots of comments I came across**

It's clear that prejudice rules these people's lives while at the same time, they forget where they come from. They would not be living in America if their past relatives did not migrate to the United States. They were immigrants; some might have been legal, some might have been illegal. But the point stands the same, we are all immigrants whether you like it or not. America is a nation of immigrants.

The United States stands to lose about $60 billion in tax revenue to the federal government and $280 billion to the economic growth. Not to mention, the loss of tax payers, a reduction in the numbers of skilled workers, including leaving businesses short-handed. We're trying to make money not spend more than what we can't replace.

So with President Donald Trump's September 5, 2017 decision via executive order to end DACA, all 800,000 of them, now face the fear of deportation and the anxiety of what's going to happen to them next. The good decent men and women of DACA stand to lose everything they've worked so hard for and everything they have grown up with. They love this country just as much as the next person, regardless of all the bias, prejudice, and racism floating around. So instead of living in peace, with the peace of mind that they won't be deported, that their contribution meant something, now once again have to live in a heightened sense of fear, worse than before; there is no hiding this time, unfortunately, and with the clock counting down to the end of 6 months, the anxiety over their future only grows.