The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that originated under the Obama administration is over. There will be a six-month enforcement delay, however. DACA, among other things, grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in this country as children. Senior aides to the White House stated today that we will see yet another core promise from President Trump’s campaign run in 2016 come to fruition.
Originally, Trump admin lawyers felt that they could not defend the move’s legality while the Department of Homeland Security stating that if Congress did, in fact, want to keep DACA alive in its current state then it would require an act of Congress. The constitutionality of this action has been in question for years since former President Obama put it into play. DACA allowed illegal aliens who came to the United States as children, essentially forced here by their parents, to legally work if certain criteria were met. The application costs $495. Given President Trump’s push toward illegal immigration during his campaign run, this may be another promise of his that we’re seeing kept.
President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm — and fulfill one of the president’s core campaign promises.
Trump has wrestled for months with whether to do away with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. He has faced strong warnings from members of his own party not to scrap the program and struggled with his own misgivings about targeting minors for deportation.
Conversations with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who argued that Congress — rather than the executive branch — is responsible for writing immigration law, helped persuade the president to terminate the program, the two sources said, though White House aides caution that — as with everything in the Trump White House — nothing is set in stone until an official announcement has been made.
In a nod to reservations held by many lawmakers, the White House plans to delay the enforcement of the president’s decision for six months, giving Congress a window to act, according to one White House official. But a senior White House aide said that chief of staff John Kelly, who has been running the West Wing policy process on the issue, “thinks Congress should’ve gotten its act together a lot longer ago.”