BUILD’s Executive Committee sent a letter to its staff in response to the Trump Administration’s announcement to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). BUILD strives to always put students first and to celebrate the BUILD family and we will continue to stand with DREAMers today and every day.

Dear BUILDers,

I have started this email multiple times to express hope and strength in these extraordinarily painful times. Instead, I must admit that I write to you completely heartsick and angry *but* even more strengthened in my resolve for our work.

As many of us have discussed and you have seen — yesterday the Trump Administration announced that it will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status granted to nearly 800,000 young people across the country. With this decision, students and others with current DACA status will face deportation if Congress does not pass a legislative solution. The repeal of DACA would have immense consequences for the communities we serve, for the students we serve, and potentially for volunteers and even for our own BUILD staff family.

This is a direct attack on the American Dream – a belief that wherever you come from and with whatever you have you can make it in our nation. The entrepreneurial spirit combined with the work ethic we celebrate assured a fair shot regardless of where one was born. This dream is in peril and BUILD as an organization and a family will not stand quietly on the sidelines.

We wanted first to state unequivocally to all of you: BUILD condemns the President’s action, and we stand united with all those affected by his decision. We strive to always put students first and to celebrate the BUILD family. The President’s decision is an affront to our core values.

BUILD believes in the potential of all students to achieve their own American Dream. The end of DACA puts at risk the potential of so many who already live, work and contribute to our collective community alongside the rest of us. This action is unfair, it is wrong, and we will work to help fix it.

As we craft a more public, organizational response to this devastating development, we want to support your work in the coming days, weeks and months of uncertainty. To that end, please find a list of links below that we hope will be informative and helpful. And please feel free to share additional resources you may come across with the entire BUILD family. We are all in this together and we will persevere.

In solidarity,

The Executive Committee

(Suzanne, Chuck, Jaime, Nicole & Greg)