No More Hope For The Dreamers In the United States of America

The hope of hundreds of thousands of immigrants known as ‘‘dreamers’’ is gradually dying as   President Donald Trump announced phasing out a program that protected young immigrants brought into the country illegally as children, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced.

The decision, after weeks of intense deliberation between President Donald Trump and his top advisers, represents a blow to hundreds of thousands of immigrants known as ‘‘dreamers’’ who have lived in the country illegally since they were children. But it also allows the White House to shift some of the pressure and burden of determining their future, setting up a public fight over their legal status that is likely to drag on for months.

In announcing the decision at the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that former president Barack Obama, who started the program in 2012 through executive action, ‘‘sought to achieve specifically what the legislative branch refused to do.’’

He called it an ‘‘open-ended circumvention of immigration law through unconstitutional authority by the executive branch,’’ and said the program was unlikely to withstand court scrutiny.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would no longer accept new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which has provided renewable, two-year work permits to nearly 800,000 dreamers. The agency said those currently enrolled in DACA will be able to continue working until their permits expire; those whose permits expire by March 5, 2018, will be permitted to apply for two-year renewals as long as they do so by Oct. 5.

New applications and renewal requests already received by DHS before Tuesday will be reviewed and validated on a case-by-case basis, even those for permits that expire after March 5, officials said.

Trump administration officials cast the decision as a humane way to unwind the program and called on lawmakers to provide a legislative solution to address the immigration status of the dreamers. Senior DHS officials emphasized that if Congress fails to act and work permits begin to expire, dreamers will not be high priorities for deportations - but they would be issued notices to appear at immigration court if they are encountered by federal immigration officers.

There are no plans for DHS to share personal information, including home addresses, of dreamers who registered for work permits with enforcement officers unless there is an immediate concern over national security, the officials said.

Trump had deliberated for weeks as pressure mounted on him to fulfill a campaign promise to end DACA, which he repeatedly called an abuse of executive authority by his predecessor. The president had equivocated since taking office, vowing to show ‘‘great heart’’ in his decision and saying dreamers could ‘‘rest easy.’’

But a threat from Texas and several other states to sue the administration if it did not end DACA by Tuesday forced Trump to make a decision. Several senior aides, including Sessions, an immigration hard-liner who had said the administration would be unable to defend the program in court, lobbied him to end DACA. Others, including Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the former DHS secretary, cautioned that terminating the program would cause chaos for immigrants who enjoy broad popular support.

Sessions wrote a memo Monday calling DACA unconstitutional, leading acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke to issue a memo Tuesday to phase out the program. The decision came on the day set by Texas and several other states to pursue a lawsuit against the Trump administration if it did not terminate DACA.

It is unclear whether the states will still move forward with legal action.


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