According to the deadline set by 10 attorney generals, President Donald Trump has until September 5 to decide whether to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program.
Thomas Saenz, President of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Organizational Fund, urged Trump not to cave on the attorney’s threat to sue over the 2012 DACA program. “The president has the authority to rescind (DACA) at any time. There is no reason for him to act before an arbitrary deadline,” Saenz said.
Saenz also pointed out the attorneys would have a difficult time stopping the program, since it has been successful and brought economic benefits to Texas for the five years it has been implemented. The process of halting it would be a long and tough legal burden. “The president has the authority to rescind (DACA) at any time. There is no reason for him to act before an arbitrary deadline. If he caves into the deadline, it is, in my view, a tremendous concession of weakness.” Saenz said.
If the expectations are true and Trump puts an end to the program, he will affect nearly 1 million people. DACA has allowed around 800,000 young people that arrived to The United States illegally to stay and work.
The whole legal procedure started when those same attorneys sued President Obama and his administration over another deportation deferral and work permission program, known as DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans), made for parents of U.S. citizen and legal immigrant children. The lawsuit also challenged an expansion of DACA, which now the attorneys want to convert into a challenge of the full 2012 DACA program.
Even though Trump has expressed that he is compassionate for young people with DACA, he has been pressured by the attorney generals and far right wing conservatives to phase out the program.
Authorized by President Obama in 2012 by executive action, DACA has been accused of being unconstitutional by its opponents. They are even having a campaign to make Trump rescind all of Obama’s executive actions.
There are other sides to the story and some legislators are doing their part: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, wrote a letter with 20 other attorneys general urging Trump to continue DACA. In a telephone news conference Monday, Becerra pointed to the collective efforts in Texas to respond to the flooding following Hurricane Harvey and to respond to the damage.
Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez pointed out that “Our party is going to fight tooth and nail to fight to protect this program,” and recalled that he defended DACA while serving as assistant attorney general on the civil rights division in the Department of Justice. He said he has great confidence that DACA is on solid legal footing.