Homeland Security chief acts on deportations
The Department of Home land Security ends one deportation policy and leaves DACA intact.
WASHINGTON — A flurry of rumors, conflicting reports and divergent statements on Friday highlighted deep divisions within the Trump administration over a major element of immigration policy — the fate of the roughly 750,000 young immigrants who are shielded from deportation by an Obama-era policy.
The rumors began after Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, moving to meet a court deadline, issued a memorandum late Thursday that formally ended the legal fight over former President Barack Obama’s 2014 Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program. That initiative sought to temporarily remove the threat of deportation for more than 4 million immigrant parents of children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
The DAPA program was never fully implemented because of a series of legal challenges by mostly Republican-states.
But one line of the memorandum noted that Obama’s 2012 order that shielded young people who came to the U.S. illegally as children “will remain in effect.” That program, known as Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, began five years ago thisweek.
The language saying DACA remained in effect raised hopes among immigrant activists that President Donald Trump had decided to permanently maintain the program. Immigrant advocacy groups issued a flurry of statements hailing a victory, only to see those forecasts reversed later in the day when administration officials said the Homeland Security statement was not intended to change the program’s tenuous status quo.
Trump vowed as a candidate to end DACA, calling it an “unconstitutional executive amnesty.” But since he took office in January, his administration has continued to receive applications and renewal requests and grant work visas to eligible individuals. Immigration advocates have put political pressure on the White House and Republicans in Congress to protect the program.
The president has openly discussed wrestling with the issue.
“To me, it’s one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids,” he said at a news conference in February, referring to the people covered by DACA.
But within the administration, some officials continue to press for Trump to stick with his promise. They have presented him with adraft executive order that would rescind the original 2012 directive.
Officials who favor repealing the program have come up with alternative ways to end it. One path explored by the White House would rely on an approach similar to the one that ultimately blocked Obama’s broader proposal to shield parents.
So far, however, Trump has not agreed to either of those ideas. There is currently no other formal process underway at the Homeland Security Department to terminate the 5-year-old program, an administration official said.
At the same time, administration officials are anxious not to appear to have given up on the campaign vow to overturn DACA, knowing that it is popular with many who favor restrictive immigration laws, a group that is politically important for Trump.
A White House official insisted Friday that “there has been no final determination on DACA.”
Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said the ambiguity surrounding the administration’s policies “continues to create fear and anxiety in immigration communities.”
On the other side of the debate, Trump’s failure to repeal DACA continues to generate complaints from advocates for reduced immigration.
“I certainly am very happy that Secretary Kelly ended DAPA ... that is a good thing and needed to happen — but it does not fulfill Trump’s campaign promise. DACA needs to be ended,” said Rosemary Jenks, head of government relations for Numbers USA, a group that advocates lower immigration levels.