Trump Administration to Renew Attempt to End DACA This Week: Report
The Trump administration will re-up its attempt to end President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program this week after the Supreme Court blocked its latest effort last month, multiple sources told The Hill.
One source who briefed The Hill on the latest developments said the White House had initially slated the renewed effort for last week, but pushed it back to this week. Speaking to Fox & Friends on Monday morning, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows signaled action was coming, saying “starting this week, you’ll see executive orders, you’ll see business that actually goes forward from the Oval Office when Congress doesn’t act.”
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the Trump administration’s attempt to end DACA violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s “arbitrary and capricious” standard and could not move forward. In response, President Trump said “nothing was lost or won” in the decision, adding that the court had “punted.”
The program, which was instituted by President Obama in 2012, affects approximately 700,000 illegal aliens brought to the United States as children. Through DACA, participants can apply for renewable deportation deferrals and receive work eligibility, but are not given a path to citizenship.
Under President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has filed multiple memoranda — first in 2017 under then-acting DHS secretary Elaine Duke, and a follow-up in 2018 by former DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen — seeking to end the program, arguing that it is unconstitutional and cannot be maintained.
Trump has previously said that “a deal will be made” with Democrats over the status of DACA’s participants if his administration was successful in ending the program. Former vice president Joe Biden has been outspoken in his defense of DACA, calling its participants “more American than most Americans” during a campaign event in January.
