President Donald Trump ended an immigrant program that protects them from deportation if they have been illegally bought into the United States. Implementation of the annulled Obama-era program is expected in March and Congress has been given six months to make a decision on the fate of around 800,000 people, Reuters reports.
After the benefactors of the Obama-era program or the so-called Dreamers, faced uncertainty, unions, civil liberty advocates, mayors, governors, and even former President Barack Obama all slammed Donald Trump’s move.
The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, who called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program an unconstitutional overreach by Obama. There will be an “orderly, lawful wind-down,” Sessions said.
Later, the president said in a statement that “I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are (a) nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”
He slammed the Obama-era program as an “amnesty-first approach” toward illegal immigrants and urged his nationalist “America First” message, noting that in spite of concerns voiced by his critics about the fate of the Dreamers, “Above all else, we must remember that young Americans have dreams too.”
In a Tweet on Tuesday evening President Trump said that lawmakers now had six months to “legalize DACA” and that if they did not, he would “revisit this issue!”
Obama responded by releasing his own statement calling the president’s move a political decision, defending DACA’s legality and urging Congress to protect Dreamers.
“This is about young people who grew up in America – kids who study in our schools, young adults who are starting careers, patriots who pledge allegiance to our flag. These Dreamers are Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper,” Obama said.
The Trump administration said nobody covered by the program, which provided work permits in addition to deportation protection and primarily benefits Hispanics, would be affected before March 5. Most people covered by DACA are in their 20s.
Trump shifted responsibility to a Congress controlled by his fellow Republicans and said it was now up to lawmakers to pass immigration legislation that could address the fate of those protected by DACA who would be in danger of deportation.
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