Former President Obama is expected to weigh in on President Trump's reported decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program (DACA), a change which would make some 800,000 immigrants who were brought to America illegally as children ineligible to work in the U.S. and eligible for deportation.
A source "close to Obama" told Politico the former president intends to issue a statement in the form of a Facebook post and promote it on Twitter, too. Obama created DACA via executive order in June 2012, a provenance that has opened the program to legal challenge on constitutional grounds.
While Obama has so far been publicly quiet about the Trump administration, in his final press availability as president he indicated he would speak up were DACA on the chopping block. "There's a difference between that normal functioning of politics and certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake," Obama said, including in that category "efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids and send them someplace else ... The notion that we would just arbitrarily or because of politics, punish those kids when they didn't do anything wrong themselves, I think, would be something that would merit me speaking out."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
August 9 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include snake oil salesmen, Ghislaine Maxwell's new residence, and more
-
5 hastily redrawn cartoons about redistrictingCartoons Artists take on Donald Trump's draughtsmanship, the White House ballroom, and more
-
Bonnie Blue: taking clickbait to extremesTalking Point Channel 4 claims documentary on the adult performer's attention-grabbing sex stunts is opening up a debate
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oilSpeed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymanderSpeed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
-
Texas Democrats exit state to block redistricting voteSpeed Read More than 51 legislators fled the state in protest of the GOP's plan to redraw congressional districts
