According to two sources close to his administration, President Trump has decided to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, a program that allows undocumented immigrants stay in the United States and work or get an education.
There has been a lot of hustle in the White House, as senior aids to the president discuss the very controversial decision, the deliberations on the issue have been very fast-paced as the president faces strong warnings from members of his own party not to scrap the program at the same time he is faced with threats of legal action by 10 attorney generals.
According to a White House official, the plan is to be delayed by six months to give an opportunity for lawmakers who have expressed reservations about ending the program, opening a window for Congress to take action.
However, White House aides caution that (as it has become norm on the Trump White House) nothing is set in stone until an official announcement has been made.
President Trump will officially announce the decision on Tuesday. The White House informed House Speaker Paul Ryan of the president’s decision on Sunday morning. Ironically, during a radio interview on Friday Ryan said that he didn’t think the president should terminate DACA, urging Congress to act on the issue.
Although this decision was expected of Trump, it will surely be one of the most contentious of his early administration because its opposed by leaders of both parties, the political establishment and the general public, as people have taken to the streets to oppose the program’s termination.
Congress and The White House kept going back and forth on the issue, with neither wanting to take the responsibility of deciding the fate of the approximately 800,000 undocumented immigrants who are benefiting from DACA. Most Republicans agree that putting a stop to DACA is a good legal decision, but they know it will come at the expense of thousands of families.
Republican lawmakers like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, have pointed out the need for Congress to pass a law to protect the daughters and sons of the immigrants benefited from DACA, referred to as Dreamers. Rubio told CNN: “My hope is that as part of this process we can work on a way to deal with this issue and solve it through legislation, which is the right way to do it and the constitutional way to do it.”
It’s still not clear if Congress will be able to come to an agreement on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, as stances on the program are very much polarized.
Dreamers are a small fraction of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. One of Trump’s promises as a candidate was to deport all of them, but many Americans have rallied to support the young adults who have spent large parts of their lives in the United States.