Pace President Stephen J. Friedman signed his name to a petition urging President-elect Donald Trump to keep the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program active on Dec 5.

DACA, which was implemented in 2012 by the Obama administration, allows immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children can volunteer themselves for deferred action consideration. This enables them to work and/or attend school in the country despite the broken law.

“My cousin is a part of that [program],” said senior psychology major Kalpani Dharmadasa, whose cousin emigrated from Sri Lanka. “She goes to school in Chicago [and] because of it, she’s allowed to have an education. Without it, [she would have to] work part-time jobs here and there and she wouldn’t be able to get anything accomplished.”

Dharmadasa was the only one of 10 Pace students surveyed who are aware of the DACA program. The other nine students agreed with the program after they were informed of its purpose.

Senior psychology major Christina Basso is another of the ten students who likes the DACA program but believes that U.S citizens should be prioritized before illegal immigrants.

“I think everyone deserves the opportunity of education whether you’re legal or illegal, as long as you can pay for it because college is expensive,” Basso said. “I think citizens should be the priority but I don’t think that illegal citizens shouldn’t be receiving aid as well because if a citizen can’t afford school how can an illegal immigrant afford school?”

Multiple Pace faculty members also agree with Friedman and other university presidents and chancellors in the country who added their name to the pro-DACA petition.

Director of Multicultural Affairs and Diversity programs Cornell Craig believes that universities should not limit educational access for anyone.

“I think that a student who wants an education shouldn’t be denied it,” Craig said. “As a university, our primary focus is to educate. We shouldn’t limit that access. I know there are a lot of opinions as far as illegality but I’m often careful with that language of legality when we’re talking about human beings.”

Similarly, political science professor George Picoulas agrees with DACA’s purpose.

However, he believes that Trump may install a database of names and addresses of illegal immigrant parents for their children to be allowed to go to school and/or work.

Pace is a tuition-based university that depends on the Federal Student Aid program. Therefore, Picoulas questions what Friedman would do in this scenario should certain illegal immigrants not comply with the hypothetical reformation.

“If [illegal immigrant children] are illegal, their parents are illegal,” Picoulas said. “Suppose President-Elect Trump says, ‘Give us their names and addresses so we can at least go out and get their parents who are actually the ones who violated the law and brought their kids in. And if you don’t do that, we are not going to guarantee student loans and grants or anything.’

“What is Friedman going to do if the federal government says that [it is] not going to guarantee any loans? I agree with Friedman’s position, but it’s more complicated than just signing a piece of paper because we would lose a lot of [illegal immigrant] students that come to Pace on loans that are guaranteed by the federal government.”

Trump said that he will “work something out” for illegal immigrants who were brought to America at a young age.

Until then, it is unclear as to what specific plans Trump has install for DACA.