DREAM CRUSHER
Trump’s move to clobber 800,000 law-abiding immigs N.Y. leaders vow to fight President’s ‘cruel’ attack
IT’S D-DAY for Dreamers.
After more than a year of contradictory statements and mixed signals, President Trump will unveil Tuesday his plan for 800,000 law-abiding, longtime residents of the United States — who could now be in danger of deportation.
On the campaign trail, Trump slammed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as illegal “amnesty” and vowed to eliminate it the day he took office.
But since his election, Trump has wavered. In April, he said Dreamers could “rest easy.”
His contradictions go back at least to 2011, when he asked in a Fox News interview regarding immigration policy, “How do you tell a family that’s been here for 25 years to get out?”
Now, White House officials say he will end the program but delay enforcement of the revocation for six months, allowing Congress time to act.
Gov. Cuomo and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman weren’t waiting for Trump — who often abruptly changes his mind — to make an official announcement.
They vowed Monday to make Trump’s threat of deporting Dreamers a political nightmare.
“If he moves forward with this cruel action, New York State will sue to protect the Dreamers and the state’s sovereign interest in the fair and equal application of the law,” Cuomo said.
“Ending this policy represents an assault on the values that built this state and this nation. The President’s action would upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people who have only ever called America their home . . . . It will rip families apart, sow havoc in our communities and force innocent people — our neighbors, our friends and our relatives — to live in fear.”
Roughly 30,000 New Yorkers are Dreamers — and about 12,000 more live elsewhere in the state.
The average Dreamer recipient came to the U.S. at the age of 6. Most are currently in their 20s, according to a recent survey by the Center for American Progress and the University of California, San Diego. All have no criminal record, and 91% are employed.
President Barack Obama created the program in June 2012 through an executive order.
Questions remained how the six-month delay under consideration by Trump would work in practice. It wasn’t clear what would happen to people who currently have work permits through the program, or those whose permits expire during the sixmonth period.
It also was unclear exactly what would happen if Congress failed to pass a measure by the deadline, White House officials said.
“President Trump’s decision to end the DACA program would be cruel, gratuitous and devastating to tens of thousands of New Yorkers — and I will sue to protect them,” Schneiderman said. “Dreamers are Americans in every way. They played by the rules. They pay their taxes.”
Dale St. Marthe, 22, who co-founded the student group CUNY DREAMers, noted that by enrolling in the program, he and other participants gave the government the very information it would need to deport them.
“They know where we live, where we work, where we go to school. They have our fingerprints. Now all of that can be used against us. It’s messed up,” said St. Marthe, who was born in St. Lucia and was brought to the U.S. when he was 3.
Another Dreamer, Eskarleth Gonzalez, 27, said the program had provided vital stability in her life. Her family brought her illegally from Mexico into the U.S. when she was 12. Thanks to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, she’d been able to accept a two-year fashion internship in New York. She recently moved to Austin, Tex., where she plans to pursue a career as a fashion stylist. “I have benefited from it so much. It’s terrifying to think of what will happen if it’s removed,” Gonzalez told the Daily News. “I’m scared that I will be forced to relocate to a place that now is foreign to me.” While Democrats are united in opposition to Trump scrapping the program, there’s a divide within the GOP. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and a number of other legislators urged Trump last week to hold off on scrapping
the program to give them time to come up with a legislative fix.
“These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don’t know another home. And so I really do believe that there needs to be a legislative solution,” Ryan told Wisconsin radio station WCLO.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who helped draft a recent bill for a new path to U.S. citizenship, said Monday he would support the President’s ending the program if Congress gets a chance to replace it.
Graham said he understands “the plight of the Dream Act kids who — for all practical purposes — know no country other than America. If President Trump makes this decision, we will work to find a legislative solution to their dilemma.”
But Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who has called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals unconstitutional, warned that a delay in dismantling it would amount to “Republican suicide.”
“Ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law,” he tweeted.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reportedly told Trump the program is illegal and Justice Department lawyers will not defend it in court. Nine state attorneys general are threatening to sue the government over the program and set a Sept. 5 deadline for action.
As Sessions announced a Tuesday press conference, The New York Times reported Monday that an exasperated Trump was looking for “a way out” of the DACA dilemma he created with his campaign promise.