Daca and the Dreamers: why Trump is targeting young migrants

The Trump administration this week announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, known as Daca.

The scheme, which protects young illegal immigrants from deportation, was introduced in 2012 and will be phased out by 5 March next year, says The Guardian.

Its repeal has proven highly divisive. Barack Obama, who introduced the programme, has condemned the move, while The Economist suggests that “the next Republican civil war looms”.

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What is Daca?

The programme is - as the University of California, Berkeley website puts it - “a kind of administrative relief from deportation”, in which young undocumented immigrants arriving in the US are protected from deportation.

As many as 800,000 migrants, known as “Dreamers”, are currently benefiting from the programme, according to The Guardian.

Application requirements state that applicants must be under the age of 31 and must have arrived in the US before their 16th birthday and have lived continuously in the US from 15 June 2007.

If migrants pass these and a number of other criteria, any action to deport them is deferred for two years, with a chance to renew after that time.

Furthermore, Dreamers are eligible for basic privileges including a driving licence, college enrolment and work permits.

Why has Trump repealed it?

On Tuesday, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced an “orderly, lawful wind-down” of Daca, claiming the programme was an unconstitutional overreach by the Obama administration, says The Independent.

New applicants to Daca will no longer be accepted. Due to the two-year extension system, this means that everyone in the programme will lose their recognised migrant status by March 2020, following the Bill's official repeal in March 2018 - unless Congress can pass legislation allowing the Dreamers to stay before then.

What has the reaction been?

Left-wing media blasted the decision, with The Atlantic referring to the repeal as “senseless”, and Vox claiming Trump had “turned Daca into a ticking time bomb”.

Democrats have called the repeal “disgraceful”, “shameful”, “despicable”, “cruel” and “bigoted”, according to the Daily Mail, and Obama has ventured rare direct criticism of Trump’s decision.

“[A] shadow has been cast over some of our best and brightest young people once again,” he said. “To target these young people is wrong – because they have done nothing wrong.

“What if our kid’s science teacher, or our friendly neighbour, turns out to be a Dreamer? Where are we supposed to send her? To a country she doesn’t know or remember, with a language she may not even speak?”