President Trump is considering ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, “the Obama-era policy that shields some illegal immigrants from deportation, before conservative state attorneys general file a court challenge to the program,” writes Jonathan Swan in Axios.
“Hard-liners in the Trump administration appear to be trying to pressure President Trump to stop an Obama-era program that has granted work permits to thousand of people who entered the country illegally as children,” reported Brian Bennett in the Los Angeles Times.
Bennett reported that officials last week “met to prepare options for Trump that range from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program immediately to phasing it out by ending renewals of the two-year work permits, allowing them to expire over time.”
Trump vowed to end DACA during his campaign last year. “But he has refused since January to sign a draft executive order to halt the program,” wrote Bennett.
The deferred-action program protects more than 750,000 people, known as Dreamers, from being deported, the article noted.
In a press release, the National Immigration Forum noted that six Republican members of Congress from California, Florida, Nebraska and New York on Aug. 22 sent a letter to Trump urging the administration to keep DACA in place “until we can pass a permanent legislative solution,” citing DACA recipients’ economic contributions and the threat posed by diverting enforcement resources toward people with deferred status.
“In addition, conservative faith, law enforcement and business leaders around the country spoke in support after last month’s bipartisan introduction of the DREAM Act in the Senate and House. “We must find a way forward for these young people, who are American in everything but paperwork,” two Texas evangelical pastors wrote earlier in July,” the forum noted.
A bigger legislative deal in the works?
But the White House may actually retain DACA as part of a broader immigration deal on Capitol Hill, writes McClatchy’s Anita Kumar.
“Donald Trump’s top aides are pushing him to protect young people brought into the country illegally as children — and then use the issue as a bargaining chip for a larger immigration deal — despite the president’s campaign vow to deport so-called Dreamers,” she wrote in an Aug. 22 article.
Kumar reports that the White House officials “want Trump to strike an ambitious deal with Congress that offers Dreamers protection in exchange for legislation that pays for a border wall and more detention facilities, curbs legal immigration and implements E-verify, an online system that allows businesses to check immigration status.”
The Immigration and Refugee News Digest 