‘WRONG AND CRUEL’: OBAMA, OTHERS SLAM TRUMP FOR SCRAPPING DACA
As US President Donald Trump claimed to possess “great heart” and “great love” for undocumented immigrants facing deportation because of his administration rescinding their Obama-era protection, critics slammed the decision as “wrong” and “cruel”, as his predecessor Barack Obama had called it.
Claiming to be on their side, Trump sought to transfer their fate into the hands of Congress, which has failed to find a way multiple times in the past, and told reporters, “I have a love for these people, and hopefully now, Congress will be able to help them and do it properly.”
The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an order passed by former US President Obama in 2012, preventing deportation of undocumented immigrants brought here as children. It called the regulation unconstitutional.
Defending his order, Obama had said that “to target these young people is wrong because they have done nothing wrong. It is self-defeating, because they want to start new businesses, staff our labs, serve in our military, and contribute to the country we love.” “And it is cruel,” he added, to leave them facing deportation.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used almost the same language: “This is a sad day for our country. The decision to end DACA is not just wrong. It is particularly cruel to offer young people the American Dream, encourage them to come out of the shadows and trust our government, and then punish them for it.”
Around 800,000 people have received DACA protection in the five years since it was instituted, including nearly 8,000 from India, says the Migration Policy Institute, which tracks immigration.
UP TO CONGRESS NOW
All of them face deportation unless Congress is able find a way to address the situation, which it has failed to before, mostly owing to opposition from immigration hawks in the Republican Party.
Lawmakers have six months before the exemptions granted under the 2012 order run out, on March 5, 2018. Trump called for a bipartisan effort to “address immigration reform”, but added, with an eye firmly on his political base, “in a way that puts hardworking citizens of our country first”.