WASHINGTON: President Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to the Obama-era executive action that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation and called on Congress to replace the policy with legislation before it fully expires on March 5, 2018.
The government will no longer accept new applications from undocumented immigrants to shield them from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, administration officials announced Tuesday. But officials said about 800,000 current beneficiaries of the program will not be immediately affected by what they called an "orderly wind down" of former President Barack
Obama's policy. President Trump signaled the move early Tuesday morning in a tweet, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions formally announced the move to shift the responsibility for the immigration issue to lawmakers.
"The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded," Mr. Sessions told reporters, adding that "The policy was implemented unilaterally, to great controversy and legal concern." Sessions called the Obama-era policy an "open-ended circumvention of immigration laws" and an unconstitutional use of executive authority.
"The executive branch through DACA deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions," he said.
Elaine Duke, the acting Homeland Security secretary, said in a statement that Trump chose to "wind the program down in an orderly fashion that protects beneficiaries in the near-term while working with Congress to pass legislation."