Obama is reportedly planning a statement against Trump's DACA decision
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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."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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