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Donald Trump has decided to scrap a program giving work permits to people who came to the United States illegally as children but will give Congress up to six months to find a legislative alternative, according to reports.
The US president decided to delay enforcement of his decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program in order to give Congress time to devise legislation to replace it, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Sunday.
The Obama administration policy protects nearly 800,000 young men and women often called “Dreamers” from deportation and allows them to work legally.
The decision to give Congress half a year to come up with an alternative represents a compromise after Republicans and business leaders asked Trump to keep the program. They included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple chief executive, Tim Cook, who tweeted that 250 staff were “Dreamers” and “I stand with them”.
“Dreamers” are a fraction of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, most of them Hispanic. Trump as a candidate promised to deport all of them, but many Americans have rallied to support the young adults who have spent large parts of their lives in the United States.
The decision, to be announced on Tuesday, will seek to placate both sides in the immigration debate at a time when the president is also grappling with North Korea’s nuclear program and Houston’s recovery from Hurricane Harvey.
House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan urged Trump on Friday not to rescind the program and was joined by senator Orrin Hatch, also a Republican.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from Florida, tweeted her dismay with the decision to scrap Daca: “After teasing #Dreamers for months with talk of his ‘great heart,’ @POTUS slams door on them. Some ‘heart’.”
Trump’s base may also be disgruntled about the president’s decision to leave open the option of a fix. Representative Steve King, a hawk on immigration and Iowa Republican, tweeted his opposition to the plan on Sunday night.
Democrats, such as Minnesota senator Al Franken, also wanted the program to continue. Franken called the reported decision a “disgrace”. Nancy Pelosi, the top House Democrat, last week asked Ryan to meet her party to discuss a “comprehensive legislative solution”.
Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin downplayed the warnings from business figures, telling Fox News Sunday he was “less concerned about the economic impact”.
Most of the Dreamers came from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. More than 200,000 live in California, while 100,000 are in Texas. New York, Illinois and Florida also have large numbers.
Congress under presidents of both parties has been unable to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The Daca issue has been actively debated within the White House and Trump administration. One senior administration official described the debate as a “tug of war” between factions.
Daca supporters argue that the people it protects are US-educated and integrated into American society, with little connection to the countries in which they are citizens. Opponents of the program argue that illegal immigrants take jobs from US citizens.
(GUARDIAN)
