Awaiting Trump’s DACA decision, ASU president commits to ‘all students’

PHOENIX — Arizona State University president Michael Crow said in a letter to the school’s community that he remains “committed to the success of all students and in particular our students from high schools in Arizona.”

The letter sent on Sunday comes as President Donald Trump is expected to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program.

Trump has been wrestling for months with what to do with the Obama-era DACA program, which has given nearly 800,000 young immigrants a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work legally in the form of two-year, renewable work permits.

In his letter, the ASU president cites the Arizona constitution ratification and points out it did not “draw distinctions” between students and that it asked schools to educate “all children of the state.” Crow adds that, at the time, many people in Arizona were Mexican Americans or bi-nationals.

“In fact, a close read of history, and the Arizona constitution shows Arizona’s founders clearly intended that we just get everybody educated,” the ASU president wrote. “This is in fact what we intend to do.”

Crow added that the school will follow the law but within it will do everything to help educate students, “regardless of the circumstances that brought them to this country.”

He added that ASU’s mission remains to show children respect and help them create a brighter future as they begin their lives as adults.

“We will have more to say after the president announces his decision,” Crow concluded.

Trump is expected to announce that he will end protections for young immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children, but with a six-month delay, people familiar with the plans told the Associated Press on Sunday.

The delay in the formal dismantling of the DACA program would be intended to give Congress time to decide whether it wants to address the status of the so-called Dreamers in legislation, according to two people familiar with the president’s thinking. But it was not immediately clear how the six-month delay would work in practice and what would happen to people who currently have work permits under the program, or whose permits expire during the six-month stretch.

The expected move would come as the White House faces a Tuesday deadline set by Republican state officials threatening to continue sue the Trump administration if the president did not end the program.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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