Ending DACA: Trump gives Congress 6-month deadline on immigrant youths program

September 5, 2017 at 11:31

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the decision on Tuesday at the Department of Justice.

The Trump administration said it will phase out the Obama-era program protecting from deportation some 800,000 illegal immigrants who were underage when they arrived. The US Congress will have six months to pass a law regulating their status.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the decision on Tuesday at the Department of Justice.

"This policy was implemented unilaterally to great controversy and legal concern after Congress rejected legislative proposals to extend similar benefits on numerous occasions to this same group of illegal aliens," Sessions said, calling the measure a "unilateral executive amnesty" that deliberately circumvented the legislative process.

The Department of Homeland Security has been asked to conduct an “orderly, lawful wind-down” of the program, Sessions said, calling DACA “unconstitutional” in character.

“There is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws,” the AG added.

Jeff Sessions: Enforcing immigration laws saves lives, protects communities & prevents human suffering #DACA https://t.co/sRqqB0ekHw pic.twitter.com/50tgLXzTuG
— RT America (@RT_America) September 5, 2017

Congress will have six months to pass a law that would regulate the status of people who were brought into the US illegally as children. Under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, some 800,000 of them were granted temporary protection from deportation by President Barack Obama’s executive action in 2012.

Congress, get ready to do your job - DACA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2017

No one currently on DACA will be impacted before March 5, 2018, “so Congress can have time to deliver on appropriate legislative solutions," acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said in a statement.

Legislative efforts to resolve the status of underage illegal immigrants go back to 2001, when Senator Dick Durbin (R-Illinois) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) proposed the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. This is why DACA recipients are often referred to as “Dreamers.”

In addition to the minority Democrats, a number of Republican lawmakers have expressed support for keeping DACA, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin).

A number of prominent business leaders, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook, have also publicly