As part of Belmont University’s Christian mission, we aim to be an inclusive and diverse community, welcoming all of God’s children to a place where education offers a hopeful future. Today’s announcement is a betrayal of trust to countless young people—including several of our own successful alumni—who met the requirements of DACA, came forward and identified themselves in order to pursue their dreams without fear. Now those same young people become among our most vulnerable of being deported because they trusted that their government had their best interest at heart.
In light of today’s rescinding of DACA, my first hope is that Congress would quickly establish a long-term legislative solution such as the bipartisan Dream Act, supported by leading Republicans and Democrats, which creates a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals. A second possibility would be the Bridge Act, another bipartisan bill, which would at least allow applicants to receive provisional protected presence and work/study authorization to be in the country.
We are in a time as a nation where it’s imperative that we understand who our enemies are. As I told our students on the first day of class this semester, our enemies are not individuals or countries or those with different opinions. Our enemies are hatred, bigotry, racism, hunger, lack of opportunities… our enemies are the things that keep us from living the life God has called us to, a life of loving our neighbors as ourselves.
—Dr. Bob Fisher, president
Belmont University
