Foreign

Obama to speak out for the first time if Trump ends DACA

Published

6 years ago

September 4, 2017

If, as expected, President Trump ends the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, former President Obama will be speaking out. Mr. Trump is expected to announce his decision Tuesday.
Mr. Obama, who implemented DACA in 2012, plans to respond in posts on social media,
Politico first reported , citing a source familiar with his plans.
Mr. Obama said as he left office he would comment on Mr. Trump’s actions at “certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake.”
Among the issues that would cause Mr. Obama to speak out, he strongly implied, was DACA or, as he put it, “efforts to round up kids who have grown up here, and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country.”
Mr. Obama’s executive order defers deportations for people who came to the U.S. undocumented as children. Almost 800,000 people are in the U.S. now because of it.
Mr. Trump is expected to end the program by not accepting new permits and by allowing existing permits to expire with no opportunity to reapply, CBS News’ Major Garrett reported last week, citing two Republican sources on Capitol Hill. Garrett says The message from the White House to Congress is that if lawmakers like DACA, they should write legislation for it, and the White House will consider it, likely favorably.