On Tuesday United States President Donald Trump passed an order to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program instituted by former President Barack Obama and urged Congress to come up with a replacement. He went on to state that the protections provided by DACA will be discontinued in six months time. The president and the attorney general argued that these immigrant hurt Americans by taking away their jobs.
Trump goes in hard
Donald Trump, who had promised a hardline stance on immigration, has gone in hard against the Obama era DACA and has directed Congress to come up with a replacement for the program before the ones protected by the program are deported.
DACA allows illegal child immigrants to live in the United States and work legally.
However, Donald Trump and the US Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed that the people given protection by DACA are law breakers, who have usurped the jobs that could have gone to American citizens. The president went on to claim that DACA is an unfair system and victimises American citizens.
Around 800,000 people have been given protection under DACA and most of them have found jobs in the United States. However, Trump's decision to end the program means that it is highly likely that these people will eventually be deported. Following the announcement, the move drew widespread condemnation and also became the subject of protests that broke out in different parts of the country.
Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
Widespread condemnation
The move has been condemned as cruel by plenty of people and in addition to that, business executives have warned that the loss of jobs to so many people will also affect the economy adversely.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg voiced his concerns about the move to discontinue DACA. On his Facebook page, he stated that it is singularly cruel that the government of United States first offered immunity to these illegal immigrants and built up their trust, only to punish them later on.
However, the most eloquent and damning condemnation came from former President Barack Obama, who took to his Facebook page to share his thoughts on the developments.
He wrote, “Whatever concerns or complaints Americans may have about immigration in general, we shouldn’t threaten the future of this group of young people who are here through no fault of their own, who pose no threat, who are not taking away anything from the rest of us,”. It remains to be seen how the US Congress handles the issue that is going to be in the news from now on.
