President Donald Trump is likely to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program sometime next week, according to media reports on Friday.
The act is an Obama-era policy that protects nearly 600,000 immigrants who were brought into the country illegally by their parents and are known as ‘Dreamers’.
Trump’s decision on whether to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy could be announced as early as next week, reported ABC News, citing multiple sources.
This comes as the President is under fire for pardoning Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio after he was convicted of contempt for targeting people he believed were illegal immigrants for arrest.
President Donald Trump (pictured on the White House lawn August 23) is likely to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program sometime next week, according to media reports on Friday
Trump’s decision on whether to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy could be announced as early as next week, reported ABC News, citing multiple sources. Pictured a protester holds a sign to rally against Trump’s potential repealing of DACA
He pardoned the 85-year-old on Friday night citing his long history of public service.
Arpaio, who campaigned for Trump in 2016, was convicted by a judge who ruled he had willfully violated a 2011 injunction barring his officers from stopping and detaining Latino motorists solely on suspicion that they were in the country illegally.
He was supposed to face up to six months in prison.
Trump also controversially signed an executive order earlier Friday banning transgendered individuals from enlisting in the armed forces – reversing yet another Obama initiative.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed the program with senior White House officials on Thursday, and the Department of Homeland Security sent the White House a recommendation on what to do earlier this week, according to NBC.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Friday that the program continues to be under review.
Trump, who infamously referred to Mexican immigrants as ‘rapists and criminals’, pledged on the election campaign trail to scrap all of former President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration, including DACA.
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said it would be a ‘moral disgrace’ to end the DACA policy.
‘America is the only country these DREAMers call home, and they don’t deserve to be thrown back in the shadows,’ Perez said in a statement.
This comes as the President (pictured August 22 in Phoenix, Arizona) is under fire for pardoning Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio after he was convicted of contempt for targeting people he believed were illegal immigrants for arrest
The act is an Obama-era policy that protects nearly 600,000 immigrants who were brought into the country illegally by their parents and are known as ‘Dreamers’. Pictured on August 15 dozens of immigration advocates and attend a rally outside Trump Tower in New York
Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed the program with senior White House officials on Thursday, and the Department of Homeland Security sent the White House a recommendation on what to do earlier this week, according to NBC. Pictured on August 15 dozens of immigration advocates and attend a rally outside Trump Tower in New York
Earlier this year in an interview with ABC News Trump said the program’s beneficiaries ‘shouldn’t be very worried. I do have a big heart. We’re going to take care of everybody.’
And last week a number of reports showed that Ivanka and Jared Kushner pushed the president to allow ‘dreamers’ to stay without deportation.
This might have been part of an effort to sway Democrat lawmakers to approve funding for the president’s border wall.
McClatchy reported that the group of White House officials have suggested using so-called ‘Dreamers’ as a bargaining chip, in order to check off some of the president’s campaign promises on immigration, including the wall, additional detention facilities, an E-verify system for employers and cuts to legal immigration.
However, such a move would break another campaign promise, as candidate Donald Trump had pledged to supporters last August to ‘immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties,’ including DACA.
Last week a number of reports showed that Ivanka and Jared Kushner pushed the president to allow ‘dreamers’ to stay without deportation
But now with much of Trump’s agenda sputtering on Capitol Hill, the first daughter and her husband have formed an alliance with new Chief of Staff John Kelly in support of this plan.
Ten Republican state attorneys general in June urged the Trump administration to rescind the DACA program going forward, while noting that the government did not have to revoke permits that had already been issued.
If the federal government did not withdraw DACA by September 5, the attorneys general said they would file a legal challenge to the program in a Texas federal court.
The ten who signed the letter represent the states of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Nebraska, Arkansas, South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, West Virginia and Kansas.
A larger coalition of 26 Republican attorneys general had challenged the Obama-era policy covering illegal immigrant parents, known as DAPA, that had been blocked by the courts before it took effect.
The Department of Homeland Security rescinded that policy earlier this month.