The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was originally created by President Obama on June 15, 2012. DACA was part of a plan to provide children of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors with a renewable, two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit. This was done in lieu of an initiative from congress to help provide a pathway for their citizenship.

To rescind DACA now without concrete prosecutorial discretion and temporary legislative measures to help aliens already in the DACA program, DACA’s end is detrimental to the U.S. economy and comes off as exceptionally callous, reflecting poorly on the American spirit.

Despite critical legal issues pertaining to whether DACA is unconstitutional being a possibly unlawful executive action which must be addressed and determined by congress, around 800,000 young unauthorized immigrants have been protected under DACA since its implementation. Those same protections should be kept.

Trump, as with many of his other unsupported, contradictory, bellicose statements, has not yet given a clear message as to his specific intentions for DACA, and also may have been influenced by other party members to put pressure on congress to end the program.

America has no positive obligations to any country or individual outside of those agreed upon previously to take in anyone, since being an American citizen is a privilege. Of course the ideal path is is to legally obtain citizenship, and now DACA ‘dreamers’ should be allowed that opportunity. Dreamers who have spent their entire adult lives in the U.S. should not be uprooted and be eligible for deportation, or lose current protections.

Because DACA recipients must be either employed or in school with no criminal record, DACA members are prime examples of the American citizen. 95 percent are currently employed, in school, or in the military, according to the National Immigration Law Center. DACA recipients work for prominent companies in specialized industries, according to Fortune.

The idea that an influx of DACA workers are undermining the U.S. citizen workforce is not supported with sufficient evidence In fact, in California alone, around a third of DACA recipients, 193,832 workers, would have an annual GDP loss of $11.6 billion according to the Center for American Progress. DACA beneficiaries will also contribute $460.3 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product over the next decade, also according to the Center for American Progress—economic growth lost if DACA is to be eliminated.

DACA recipients should not be punished for the actions of their parents, especially since to be a part of the DACA program, they came forward and willingly supplied information, meeting a certain criteria to apply for the program, information which could now be used against them. As established integral members of the U.S, such an act is not only illogical, but comes off as an unnecessarily cruel move, as shown by the fact that 8 out of 10 American voters support DACA, as do a majority of Trump supporters, according to a Politico/Morning Consult survey.

Children brought here by their parents should get a chance to earn their citizenship and create a prosperous life for themselves. That’s the very foundation of the American dream. Ending DACA in such a manner goes against both simple logic and basic human decency. DACA members would be plunged into even further uncertainty and confusion about their status.

Trump‘s supposedly productive bipartisan meetings, with the purpose of creating protections for dreamers are a step in the right direction, but concrete legislation to protect DACA recipients has yet to be passed. DACA recipients, are for all intents and purposes, Americans, and they should be treated as such.