WASHINGTON _ Hard-liners in the Trump administration appear to be trying to pressure President Donald Trump to stop an Obama-era program that has granted work permits to thousand of people who entered the country illegally as children.
Officials this week have met to prepare options for Trump that range from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program immediately to phasing it out by ending renewals of the two-year work permits, allowing them to expire over time.
The president promised to end DACA during his campaign last year. But he has refused since January to sign a draft executive order to halt the program.
The deferred action program protects more than 750,000 people, known as Dreamers, from being deported.
Trump now is facing additional pressure from 10 Republican state attorneys general, from heavily Republican states, who have pledged to sue the Trump administration if the president doesn't roll back the DACA program by Sept. 5.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a hard-liner on immigration, is in favor of ending DACA. He has signaled internally that he would be reluctant to have Justice Department attorneys defend the program in court.
White House aides in favor of tighter immigration restrictions have privately hoped the litigation against DACA would move forward and provide a way to end protection for "Dreamers" while shielding Trump from the blowback of simply ending the program.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to say Friday if Trump was close to ending DACA.
"The administration has indicated several times before that the DACA program is under review," Sanders said. "It continues to be under review."
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke and Sessions discussed DACA with officials at the White House in a meeting Thursday, an administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
That followed a Monday meeting at Homeland Security between Duke and Thomas Homan, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the official said.
Since taking office, Trump has shown sympathy for people brought to the country illegally as children, a view encouraged by his daughter Ivanka Trump.
In recent months, he has indicated repeatedly he wouldn't put recipients of the work permits in jeopardy of being removed from the country.
In April, Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press that people protected from deportation under DACA could "rest easy."
