Protesters chanted from a busy street in Bentonville, hoping to raise awareness of Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s decision to end the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program.
“This is a country that’s supposed to have compassion and concern and take in people and help them. I mean that’s my idea of what the United States of America is all about and I’d like to think that’s the country we still are,”
protester Harrie Farrow said.
Over the course of five years, 800,000 immigrant children have benefited from DACA. The program allows certain undocumented minors to apply for a renewable two-year work permit and deferred deportation.
“They were told they had this dream they could become full citizens if they did the right things and many of them are doing that and have been doing that and now its being taken away from them,”
Farrow said.
Rutledge reached out to the Trump administration along with nine other attorney general’s nationwide to end the program. She responded to questions about current immigrants covered under the program with the following statement:
“I am not asking the government to remove any person currently covered by DACA or for the Administration to rescind DACA permits that have already been issued – this is about upholding the rule of law. Even former President Obama acknowledged many times that he did not have authority to unilaterally grant this type of legal status to over one million aliens.”
Protesters left statements for Rutledge to consider with the her representative at the mobile office.