Daca: Trump 'to scrap' amnesty for young immigrants
"Daca: Trump 'to scrap' amnesty for young immigrants
4 September 2017, BBC World News US and Canada
US President Donald Trump has decided to scrap a programme that protects young undocumented immigrants, according to reports.
He will give Congress six months to draw up legislation to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), sources quoted by US media say.
The decision, first reported in Politico, is considered a compromise amid strong support for the scheme.
However, the sources cautioned that Mr Trump could still change his mind.
He is due to formally announce his decision on Tuesday.
The Obama-era Daca programme protects hundreds of thousands of so-called "Dreamers" from deportation and provides work and study permits
Candidate Trump promised to do away with Daca, and it appears that's what he's going to do, despite warnings from a cross-party collection of politicians. Or, knowing this president, those objections from "the establishment" only make him more determined to act.
Fortunately for him, unlike repealing Obamacare or building his Mexican border wall, he doesn't need Congress's help here.
In fact, by setting a six-month fuse on Daca's destruction, Mr Trump puts all the pressure on legislators if they want to protect undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children.
While the votes may be there for some type of fix, Congress already has its hands full with other pressing issues - hurricane relief, budget resolutions, the need to authorise new government debt and, at some point, tax reform.
Mr Trump may not care, but he's putting Republicans with tough re-election races in a difficult spot. If the president's Daca bomb goes off, they will face angry constituents just as the campaign season gets into gear.
The president, however, satisfies his anti-immigration base with this move - and washes his hands of the matter. The loyalists who have stood by him are rewarded, others in his party be damned.
According to Politico, the White House informed House Speaker Paul Ryan of the president's decision on Sunday morning.
Mr Ryan last week urged the president not to scrap the scheme, arguing it left many young people "in limbo".
"These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don't know another home," he said.
Trump has previously said he "loves" the Dreamers
Mr Ryan is one of a growing number of Republican lawmakers and business leaders to speak out against scrapping the programme.
While campaigning for office, Mr. Trump took a hard-line on immigration and said he planned to "immediately terminate" the Daca programme.
But since then he has said he finds the subject "very, very tough".
He said he intends to show "great heart" in dealing with what he described as, in many cases, "incredible kids".
The decision to give Congress six months to draft an alternative is seen as a compromise after Republican lawmakers and business leaders from companies including Google, General Motors and Microsoft urged Mr Trump to retain the programme.
On Sunday, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted: "Thanks to Dreamers' courage & resolve, #DACA has allowed thousands of young people to contribute to our society. We're better for it."
If Trump decides to end DACA, it will be one of the ugliest and cruelest decisions ever made by a president in our modern history.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 4, 2017
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican Representative from Florida, also took to Twitter to vent her frustration, saying: "After teasing #Dreamers for months with talk of his 'great heart,' @POTUS slams door on them. Some 'heart'."
What is Daca?
The Daca programme protects roughly 750,000 people in the US from deportation and provides temporary permits for work and study.
In order to qualify for Daca, applicants under the age of 30 submit personal information to the Department of Homeland Security.
They must go through an FBI background check and have a clean criminal background, and either be in school, recently graduated or have been honourably discharged from the military.
In exchange, the US government agrees to "defer" any action on their immigration status for a period of two years.
The majority of so-called Dreamer immigrants in the US are from Mexico and other Latin American countries."
My response:
Having been on the other side of the ocean I confess I feel quite uniformed to to all that is going on in this issue and I don't know exactly how to respond. But immigration and more remotely connected refugees are worldwide and the question of where these people belong is a question being asked everywhere. This is an emotional issue for everyone, everyone has unique ties to the place they call "home". From my understanding these Daca younger immigrants moved to America as younger children and may know no other way of life. America may be home for many of them, and I understand that.
Now many people in America feel afraid of all that is happening outside of America and want to feel safe and far away from those issues by keeping it safe within their borders. Protecting its people and looking out for its people is the government's job and its important. But does America have a place for "Dreamers"? Where does this issue fit into the "American Dream"?
The American Dream is many things, many people have come from all over the world to find it, determined to make or break themselves apart from their family line. Many people strive to have a good education, a family, a safe neighborhood to live in, a comfortable house, to work hard and drive a nice car. The American Dream for many is that it can happen to anybody because you can do it yourself. Protection is important, but is more being shut out than what is harmful? What about good?
Trump said that 'he intends to show 'great heart' in dealing with what he described as, in many cases, 'incredible kids'". If we could all have great hearts with all the different kinds of people we deal with and the difficult situations we encounter maybe this problem would be solved. Can you have a great heart for everyone and stand with people on both sides? Letting in people different from ourselves into our hearts and into our lives isn't easy, it takes hard work on both sides.
The article talking to the American people seems to question Trump and what appears to be a switch in his loyalties to the people. But it also asks the people not just about their president's response to people outside their borders but their own response to people different from them. The article does seem to put a bad light on Trump, saying he broke his promises he made during the election. It makes him seem cold towards people, breaking their trust. The article does a good job of showing how important the decision is for everyone and sets the stage for both sides as the president formally announces his decision today.
If I've meandered in this article I hope you could follow along as I wander through it all. I don't feel like I have many answers, just more questions. Whatever you know about this issue I'm happy to hear and learn more about the people behind this issue than I do now.
4 September 2017, BBC World News US and Canada
US President Donald Trump has decided to scrap a programme that protects young undocumented immigrants, according to reports.
He will give Congress six months to draw up legislation to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), sources quoted by US media say.
The decision, first reported in Politico, is considered a compromise amid strong support for the scheme.
However, the sources cautioned that Mr Trump could still change his mind.
He is due to formally announce his decision on Tuesday.
The Obama-era Daca programme protects hundreds of thousands of so-called "Dreamers" from deportation and provides work and study permits
Candidate Trump promised to do away with Daca, and it appears that's what he's going to do, despite warnings from a cross-party collection of politicians. Or, knowing this president, those objections from "the establishment" only make him more determined to act.
Fortunately for him, unlike repealing Obamacare or building his Mexican border wall, he doesn't need Congress's help here.
In fact, by setting a six-month fuse on Daca's destruction, Mr Trump puts all the pressure on legislators if they want to protect undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children.
While the votes may be there for some type of fix, Congress already has its hands full with other pressing issues - hurricane relief, budget resolutions, the need to authorise new government debt and, at some point, tax reform.
Mr Trump may not care, but he's putting Republicans with tough re-election races in a difficult spot. If the president's Daca bomb goes off, they will face angry constituents just as the campaign season gets into gear.
The president, however, satisfies his anti-immigration base with this move - and washes his hands of the matter. The loyalists who have stood by him are rewarded, others in his party be damned.
According to Politico, the White House informed House Speaker Paul Ryan of the president's decision on Sunday morning.
Mr Ryan last week urged the president not to scrap the scheme, arguing it left many young people "in limbo".
"These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don't know another home," he said.
Trump has previously said he "loves" the Dreamers
Mr Ryan is one of a growing number of Republican lawmakers and business leaders to speak out against scrapping the programme.
While campaigning for office, Mr. Trump took a hard-line on immigration and said he planned to "immediately terminate" the Daca programme.
But since then he has said he finds the subject "very, very tough".
He said he intends to show "great heart" in dealing with what he described as, in many cases, "incredible kids".
The decision to give Congress six months to draft an alternative is seen as a compromise after Republican lawmakers and business leaders from companies including Google, General Motors and Microsoft urged Mr Trump to retain the programme.
On Sunday, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted: "Thanks to Dreamers' courage & resolve, #DACA has allowed thousands of young people to contribute to our society. We're better for it."
If Trump decides to end DACA, it will be one of the ugliest and cruelest decisions ever made by a president in our modern history.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 4, 2017
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican Representative from Florida, also took to Twitter to vent her frustration, saying: "After teasing #Dreamers for months with talk of his 'great heart,' @POTUS slams door on them. Some 'heart'."
What is Daca?
The Daca programme protects roughly 750,000 people in the US from deportation and provides temporary permits for work and study.
In order to qualify for Daca, applicants under the age of 30 submit personal information to the Department of Homeland Security.
They must go through an FBI background check and have a clean criminal background, and either be in school, recently graduated or have been honourably discharged from the military.
In exchange, the US government agrees to "defer" any action on their immigration status for a period of two years.
The majority of so-called Dreamer immigrants in the US are from Mexico and other Latin American countries."
My response:
Having been on the other side of the ocean I confess I feel quite uniformed to to all that is going on in this issue and I don't know exactly how to respond. But immigration and more remotely connected refugees are worldwide and the question of where these people belong is a question being asked everywhere. This is an emotional issue for everyone, everyone has unique ties to the place they call "home". From my understanding these Daca younger immigrants moved to America as younger children and may know no other way of life. America may be home for many of them, and I understand that.
Now many people in America feel afraid of all that is happening outside of America and want to feel safe and far away from those issues by keeping it safe within their borders. Protecting its people and looking out for its people is the government's job and its important. But does America have a place for "Dreamers"? Where does this issue fit into the "American Dream"?
The American Dream is many things, many people have come from all over the world to find it, determined to make or break themselves apart from their family line. Many people strive to have a good education, a family, a safe neighborhood to live in, a comfortable house, to work hard and drive a nice car. The American Dream for many is that it can happen to anybody because you can do it yourself. Protection is important, but is more being shut out than what is harmful? What about good?
Trump said that 'he intends to show 'great heart' in dealing with what he described as, in many cases, 'incredible kids'". If we could all have great hearts with all the different kinds of people we deal with and the difficult situations we encounter maybe this problem would be solved. Can you have a great heart for everyone and stand with people on both sides? Letting in people different from ourselves into our hearts and into our lives isn't easy, it takes hard work on both sides.
The article talking to the American people seems to question Trump and what appears to be a switch in his loyalties to the people. But it also asks the people not just about their president's response to people outside their borders but their own response to people different from them. The article does seem to put a bad light on Trump, saying he broke his promises he made during the election. It makes him seem cold towards people, breaking their trust. The article does a good job of showing how important the decision is for everyone and sets the stage for both sides as the president formally announces his decision today.
If I've meandered in this article I hope you could follow along as I wander through it all. I don't feel like I have many answers, just more questions. Whatever you know about this issue I'm happy to hear and learn more about the people behind this issue than I do now.
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