Trump declares immigration scheme ‘probably dead’ amid US racism row

Donald Trump has declared a programme that protects immigrants who were brought to the US illegally as children as “probably dead”.

The US president cast a further cloud over already tenuous negotiations just days before a deadline on a government funding deal that Democrats have tied to immigration.

The issue is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme created by former President Barack Obama to shield hundreds of thousands of individuals from deportation.

Mr Trump, who has taken 0 US president Donald Trump has stuck by his tough stance a hard stance against illegal immigration, announced last year that he would end the program unless Congress came up with a solution by March.

“DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our military,” Mr Trump tweeted.

“I, as president, want people coming into our country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT.”

His stance comes just days after an explosive Oval Office meeting in which the US president questioned the need to admit more Haitians to the US along with Africans, who he reportedly accused as being from “shithole” countries.

Mr Trump is alleged to have said in the Thursday meeting he would prefer immigrants from countries like Norway.