On Sunday, Politico and Reuters reported that Trump plans to eventually terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants work permits and protections for so-called Dreamers, or undocumented young people brought to the U.S. as children.There will be a six-month delay to any enforcement of the president’s decision, unnamed sources told Politico and Reuters. Congress will have to use that gap if they choose to act to keep protections for DACA recipients in place, meaning Dreamers might not know for months whether or how their lives could be upended.
The White House is expected to officially announce Trump’s decision on
Tuesday.
The decision would run against the recommendation of some Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who said Friday that Trump should keep DACA in place while Congress works on a legislative solution.
The program, often referred to as DACA, allows undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. before they turned 16 to apply for two-year work authorization and reprieve from deportation. Since President Barack Obama created DACA in 2012, nearly 800,000 people have been granted those protections, which meant they could obtain driver’s licenses, work legally and live without the imminent threat of being returned to countries they hadn’t seen since childhood.
Trump’s decision comes ahead of an informal Sept. 5 deadline set by state attorneys general who threatened legal action if the president did not suspend DACA by that time.
But supporters of DACA, including members of Congress and immigrant rights groups, said Trump could have fought for the program in court ― or even waited to see if the states actually followed through on a legal challenge. They made a last-ditch push to persuade him to maintain DACA. Instead, the president’s decision could put those hundreds of thousands of Dreamers in limbo.
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