By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
SEPT. 5, 2017 - The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to the Obama-era executive action that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, calling the program an “amnesty-first approach” and urging Congress to replace it with legislation before it begins phasing out on March 5, 2018.
“I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents,” Mr. Trump said in a written statement. “But we must also recognize that we are nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”
The statement was released shortly after Mr. Trump, who had called the issue a personal dilemma, dispatched Attorney General Jeff Sessions to announce that the government will no longer accept new applications from undocumented immigrants to shield them from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA.
Administration officials said the roughly 800,000 current beneficiaries of the program — brought to the United States illegally as children — will not be immediately affected by what they called an “orderly wind-down” of former President Barack Obama’s policy.
“Before we ask what is fair to illegal immigrants, we must also ask what is fair to American families, students, taxpayers, and job seekers,” the president added.
The announcement prompted an outcry, particularly from Democrats and immigration advocacy groups. Mr. Obama, who had pledged to speak out should Mr. Trump end the program, said that the president had singled out young strivers for punishment they did not deserve.
“To target these young people is wrong — because they have done nothing wrong,” Mr. Obama said on Facebook. “It is self-defeating — because they want to start new businesses, staff our labs, serve in our military, and otherwise contribute to the country we love. And it is cruel.”
He urged Congress to pass a bill to protect those who were shielded from deportation by the program.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Trump would support legislation to protect those young immigrants, as long as Congress passes it as part of a broader immigration overhaul to strengthen the border, protect American jobs and enhance enforcement.
“The president wants to see responsible immigration reform, and he wants that to be part of it,” Ms. Sanders said, referring to protections for the young immigrants. “Something needs to be done. We want to be part of it.”
But Ms. Sanders would not say whether the president would support a stand-alone bill that only addresses protection for the young immigrants. And she declined to say what Mr. Trump might do if Congress fails to act by the time the DACA recipients start losing their work permits and deportation protection next March.
Earlier on Tuesday, it was Mr. Sessions, an immigration hard-liner who has helped shape Mr. Trump’s views, who publicly announced the move, in essence shifting responsibility for the immigration issue to lawmakers.
“The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded,” Mr. Sessions told reporters, adding that “the policy was implemented unilaterally, to great controversy and legal concern.”
Mr. Sessions called the Obama-era policy an “open-ended circumvention of immigration laws” and an unconstitutional use of executive authority. “The executive branch through DACA deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions,” he said.
He also used the aggrieved language of anti-immigrant activists who argue that undocumented people are lawbreakers who hurt native-born Americans by usurping their jobs and pushing down wages.
“The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of minors at the southern border with humanitarian consequences,” Mr. Sessions said. “It denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”
The announcement was an effort by Mr. Trump to honor his campaign pledge to end Mr. Obama’s immigration policy, while avoiding an immediate termination of protections and work permits for the so-called “dreamers,” many of whom have lived in the United States since they were small children.
“We are people of compassion, and we are people of law, but there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration law,” Mr. Sessions said.
The announcement formally started the clock on revoking legal status from those protected under the five-year-old program.
Mr. Obama created the DACA program as a way of protecting young, undocumented immigrants from deportation after Republicans in Congress repeatedly blocked passage of a legislation to accomplish that goal. The policy allowed about 800,000 young adults who were brought to the United States illegally as children to work legally in the United States and remain in the country without the fear of immediate deportation.
Officials said some of the current immigrants already receiving protection under the Obama-era plan will be able to renew their two-year period of legal status until October 5. But the announcement means that if Congress fails to act, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children could face deportation as early as March to countries where many of them have never lived.
“Congress now has the opportunity to advance responsible immigration reform that puts American jobs and American security first,” Mr. Trump said in his statement, calling for the enactment of legislation that would slash legal immigration levels by prioritizing the admittance of people who speak English and have advanced skills. In the statement, he notably did not endorse bipartisan legislation to codify the Dreamers’ protections.
The president said he wanted to “resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion – but through the lawful democratic process – while at the same time ensuring that any immigration reform we adopt provides enduring benefits for the American citizens we were elected to serve. We must also have heart and compassion for unemployed, struggling, and forgotten Americans.”
Immigration officials said that they do not intend to actively target the young immigrants as priorities for deportation, though without the program’s protection, the immigrants are considered subject to removal from the United States and would no longer be able to work legally.
As late as one hour before the decision was to be announced, administration officials privately expressed concern that Mr. Trump might not fully grasp the details of the steps he was about to take, and when he discovered their full impact, would change his mind, according to a person familiar with their thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity without authorization to comment on it.
Marielena Hincapié, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, called Mr. Trump’s decision “nothing short of hypocrisy, cruelty and cowardice.”
And Maria Praeli, a recipient of protection under the now-ended program, criticized Mr. Sessions and Mr. Trump for talking “about us as if we don’t matter and as if this isn’t our home.”
After Mr. Sessions had delivered his remarks, more than 100 protesters marched past the Justice Department singing “This Land Is Your Land, This Land is My Land” in Spanish and “Venceremos,” or, “We shall overcome.” Holding bunches of red, white and blue balloons and an array of signs with handwritten messages — “We are dreamers, not criminals,” “Do not shatter them,” and “Resist.”
Even in the bitter immigration debates of the past decade, children who were illegally brought to the United States at young ages by their parents, and who graduated from high school or sought to enter the military, have held a sympathetic place in the conversation.
They were branded as Dreamers for their inspiring personal stories and regarded by members of both parties as deserving of a special status. Opinion polls have found the public overwhelmingly supports granting them some form of legal standing that allows them to stay and work in the country where they were raised.
Mr. Obama made a personal appeal to Mr. Trump about the program and after being sworn in, Mr. Trump began to equivocate, musing aloud about the fate of “these incredible kids,” and promising to deal with them with “great heart.”
In recent weeks, his dilemma has grown more dramatic, after 10 state attorneys general wrote to Mr. Sessions, threatening to mount a legal challenge to DACA unless the administration phased out the program by Sept. 5. In a recent meeting at the White House, Mr. Sessions informed Mr. Trump he would not defend what he considered an unconstitutional order in court, according to people familiar with the conversation.
In June, the administration ended a similar program Mr. Obama created in 2014 to expand eligibility for DACA and give legal status to as many as five million parents of citizens and legal permanent residents. That order was blocked by a legal challenge by the State of Texas, and the Supreme Court announced last year that it had deadlocked on the case, 4 to 4.
The attorneys general said if Mr. Trump did not take similar action to terminate DACA, they would amend the Texas lawsuit to include it and work to have a court overturn the program along with the other two.