1. Trump axes Daca
Donald Trump announced that a Barack Obama-era program to protect undocumented people who arrived in the US as children would end in March, exposing 800,000 young people to deportation.
2. Spoken justifications
In dual statements, Trump and the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, speciously tied Daca to gang violence, unemployment and a “surge of minors at the southern border”. Trump accused Obama of an abuse of power and said Congress should legislate on the issue.
3. Unspoken justifications?
To qualify for Daca, enrollees had to have arrived in the US before 2007 and to pass a background check. Economists and the Chamber of Commerce support Daca. Critics of the Trump administration move therefore saw a different motivation at work: racism.
4. Obama calls move ‘cruel’
In his most significant foray into the public sphere since he handed the presidency off to Trump, Obama called the move “wrong”, “self-defeating” and “cruel”.
'Basic decency'
Let’s be clear. The action taken today isn’t required legally. It’s a political decision, and a moral question … Ultimately, this is about basic decency.
– Barack Obama
5. Protesters take to the streets
Protesters turned out across the country to decry Trump’s move, occupying a stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and a stretch of Fifth Avenue in New York. Activist groups vowed to fight to protect Dreamers.
6. About that Congress
The Democratic senator Dick Durbin and the Republican senator Lindsey Graham held a joint news conference to say they would try to pass a law to protect Dreamers. But as Obama pointed out, Congress has sat on the issue for years without action.
... and another thing:
I look forward to working w/ D's + R's in Congress to address immigration reform in a way that puts hardworking citizens of our country 1st.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2017
