![U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. / [Image by Texas State Library and Archives Commission via Flickr, CC BY 2.0]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/9/7/660x290/b_502x220x82/us-capitol-building-in-washington-dc-image-by-texas-state-library-and-archives-commission-via-flickr-cc-by-20_1556781.jpg "U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. / [Image by Texas State Library and Archives Commission via Flickr, CC BY 2.0]")
After President Trump announced that he was going to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), program, it was learned that a memo about the administration's stance on the program was sent to Congress to tell DACA participants to start making preparations to leave the country. The matter is now in the hands of Congress who are already dealing with their share of legislative issues before the end of the year. The concern immigration advocates have is whether Congress is going to try and save the DACA program.
Constitutionality of DACA and anti-immigrant agenda in Congress
In his statement from the Justice Department on Tuesday, Trump's attorney general Jeff Sessions was that the executive branch's creation of the DACA program was "unconstitutional." It's been opined that the argument over whether the DACA program is constitutional or not is a false one. This is because the executive power that former President Obama used to create, it was already sanctioned by Congress. However, when it comes to divisive politics between Republicans and Democrats, Republicans have especially invested much of the last decade to partisan battles.
President Trump's obsession with erasing the Obama legacy involves everything that Republicans -- who have spent both of the former president's terms obstructing every decision -- have ever wanted.
So it's likely that privately, they would be more than happy to oblige President Trump's memo against DACA. It should be mentioned that the connection of anti-immigrant fervor extends throughout the White House and has already settled in Congress, by the lobbying from xenophobic and nationalist organizations such as FAIR.
Congressional reluctance to deal with immigration
It's said that there are currently 800,000 enrolled in the DACA program and with Congress doing nothing to protect the program, we would be seeing a mass deportation of children to young adults who have never known any other country but the United States. So far, House Speaker Paul Ryan has not indicated that he intends to protect the program.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, he said that DACA is part of a larger problem of not having control of the borders.
Even more, congressional Republicans are already saying they will have to look at the DACA program and immigration in general, later on. With Congress taking the entire month of August off, they have returned to Washington to face legislative hurdles for raising the debt ceiling, providing disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey and tax reform. So far, disaster relief and the debt ceiling are the only items they would have time to complete.
