The inhumanity and lies of Trump's DACA suspension

This decision is terrible. It's based on callous misrepresentations. And we're stuck with it.

President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar)

Many of the promises President Trump made while on the campaign trail — to protect the federal welfare state, to drain D.C. of Wall Street influence — have unsurprisingly been exposed as empty vows. But when he mobilized white nationalism on his road to the presidency, Trump was telling the truth about how he'd act in office. The announcement Tuesday that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will be ended is but the latest example of the real consequences of Trump's hostility to immigration — and don't count on Congress to pass a fix anytime soon.

DACA was implemented in 2012, via executive action by former President Barack Obama. It has allowed roughly 800,000 "DREAMers" — otherwise law-abiding young adults who were brought to the United States as unauthorized immigrants when they were children, and so named for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act — to attain employment and education without immediate fear of deportation.

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Scott Lemieux

Scott Lemieux is a professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., with a focus on the Supreme Court and constitutional law. He is a frequent contributor to the American Prospect and blogs for Lawyers, Guns and Money.