NGAN/AFP/Getty Images Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the repeal of the Obama era executive order known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program both on constitutional grounds and also on principle.
The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences, Sessions said. It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.
The move saw significant opposition from Democrats and voices in the media, while even some Republicans who formerly opposed DACA called for Congress to act to resolve the issue with legislation.
The rollback includes a six-month delay so as to allow Congress to act if it so chose. The White House had expressed hope that the issue could be included as part of a broader immigration legislation package, with Trump tweeting that he hoped to work with Democrats and Republicans for a reform that puts hardworking citizens of our country 1st.
But by late Tuesday, Trump appeared to have turned into a paper tiger on the key campaign promise to get rid of DACA, saying he would revisit this issue if Congress did not legalize DACA.
The tweet appears to be adopting an argument used by many establishment Republicans that posits the problem with DACA was not its substance, but primarily that it was done unilaterally by President Obama, not through Congress.
It is unlikely that Trumps America First base, which supported Trump in part because of his focus on illegal immigration, will be satisfied with anything approaching a repeat of DACA either by Congress or presidential pen.
Perhaps sensing a possible cave, conservative commentator Ann Coulter tweeted before the announcement that millions of voters not only wont vote for [Trump] again, but will never vote Republican again if they pass this DACA amnesty.
Poster Comment:
I told you so. Trump is a NYC globalist progressive like his next door neighbors, Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer.
Full amnesty will come if he's reelected in 2020. He's a Reagan Reconquista, a REAL Republican!