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WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to the Obama-era program that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, calling it an “amnesty-first approach” and urging Congress to pass a replacement before he begins phasing out its protections in six months. As early as March, officials said, some of the 800,000 young adults brought to the United States illegally as children who qualify for the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, will become eligible for deportation. The five-year-old policy allows them to remain without fear of immediate removal from the country and gives them the right to work legally. Mr. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who announced the change at the Justice Department, both used the aggrieved language of anti-immigrant activists, arguing that those in the country illegally are lawbreakers who hurt native-born Americans by usurping their jobs and pushing down wages. Mr. Trump said in a statement that he was driven by a concern for “the millions of Americans victimized by this unfair system.” Mr. Sessions said the program had “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html

(CNN)The Trump administration on Tuesday formally announced the end of DACA -- a program that had protected nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation. The Department of Homeland Security will stop processing any new applications for the program as of Tuesday and rescinded the Obama administration policy, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. "I am here today to announce that the program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday at the Justice Department. Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/daca-trump-congress/index.html

Refusing to uphold the law became somewhat fashionable in the Obama era — especially when it concerned immigration. Well, now enter Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Pardon the Alabama vernacular, but Sessions ain’t a real fashionable guy. Good for him. We either have laws or we don’t. We can’t make them up on the fly. Earlier today, Sessions announced that the Trump administration would no longer shield from deportation undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, he said, “was implemented unilaterally to great controversy and legal concern after Congress rejected legislative proposals to extend similar benefits on numerous occasions to this same group of illegal aliens.” So, the administration has given Congress six months to take action and reflect the will of the people. For his part, Sessions is committed to enforcing the law above all else. Period. Bringing DACA to an end is not an insider legislative tactic. Rather, it is a return to proper law enforcement. And if Congress legislates a provision protecting undocumented immigrants who have mostly known life only in the United States — and President Trump signs the bill — Sessions would be the first person to uphold that law. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/09/05/rescinding-daca-is-a-test-for-the-gop/?utm_term=.82b75c5ed591

Washington (CNN)White House talking points on Tuesday urged DACA recipients to prepare for a "departure from the United States," a much starker possible future than Trump administration officials used in public when announcing an end to the program. The statement was contained in a background document that was sent by the White House to offices on Capitol Hill, obtained by CNN from multiple sources. In the "DACA talking points" memo, the White House laid out a number of bullet points for supporters on Tuesday's announcement outlining the administration's action. One bullet point suggests DACA participants should prepare to leave the country. "The Department of Homeland Security urges DACA recipients to use the time remaining on their work authorizations to prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States -- including proactively seeking travel documentation -- or to apply for other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible," the memo says. Neither the White House or Department of Homeland Security disputed the contents of the document to CNN. "As noted, we expect Congress to pass legislation so this will hopefully be a moot point," DHS spokesman David Lapan said. "However, of course we would encourage persons who are in the country illegally to depart voluntarily, or seek another form of immigration benefit for which they might qualify." "No one has an entitlement to live in the United States illegally," Lapan added. "Individuals have an independent obligation to comply with the laws that Congress passes, in all contexts." The White House referred all questions to DHS. The Trump administration Tuesday announced it was ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has protected nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation and offered them the ability to work and study in the US. DHS will process applications that had been received before Tuesday and will allow renewals in the next month of any of the two-year permits set to expire before March 5, 2018, to give time for Congress to act. Trump said Tuesday he has "a great heart" for DACA recipients and the White House is pushing Congress to act. "I have a love for these people and hopefully now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly," Trump said Tuesday afternoon at the White House. "And I can tell you, speaking to members of Congress, they want to be able to do something and do it right." The talking points language echoes similar guidance DHS has used in the past regarding a different program, Temporary Protected Status, when it granted a six-month extension to Haitians displaced by the 2010 earthquake who are using it to work and study in the United States. DHS has signaled it may end the protections after those six months expire. But the comments are sure to alarm already fearful advocates, who worry that if Congress fails to save the DACA program, the expiration of permits could mean deportation for the nearly 700,000 people currently enrolled in DACA that in many cases have known no other home besides the US. In public statements Tuesday after announcing an end to the program, DHS had acknowledged that any person who loses their DACA permit would revert to being like any undocumented immigrant in the US, though it emphasized that it did not place a priority on targeting those individuals. But they did not offer any assurances those individuals would avoid deportation if encountered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and confirmed that ICE would be able to access the detailed information DHS has on those individuals if it found a law enforcement purpose to do so. Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/white-house-memo-daca-recipients-leave/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/politi...ion/index.html Washington (CNN)The Trump administration is looking at whether the state attorneys general who are pushing for a decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would be willing to extend their deadline of September 5 for action from Trump, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Trump is weighing his options on the protections for the nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants under DACA, which gave young people who had come to the United States illegally as children the chance to work and study in the country without fear of deportation. One source told CNN that White House chief of staff John Kelly is among those officials advocating for such a delay to make a decision on what to do with the Obama-era program. But the sources did not say whether Trump will listen to Kelly on the issue as he has come under tremendous pressure from inside the White House and from outside groups to end the DACA program. Sources on the Hill increasingly believe Trump is leaning toward ending renewals and new applicants to the program, and a source familiar has said the White House is considering that option. Hill sources say they don't expect a DACA fix to emerge right away when Congress reconvenes next month, even if Trump scraps the program immediately before they return. CNN's Daniella Diaz, Tal Kopan, Lauren Fox and Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...cial-says.html "President Trump is expected to announce plans to end President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which had halted the deportation of certain young illegal immigrants, a senior administration official told Fox News." Update: Sarah Huckabee at the White House briefing just confirmed this is not true, DACA is still under review. No decision has been made and there is no deadline for the decision on DACA.

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump is expected to end an Obama-era program that shielded young people from deportation, but he will likely let the immigrants known as Dreamers stay in the United States until their work permits run out, according to multiple people familiar with the policy negotiation. That plan would allow Trump to fulfill a campaign promise to end one of Barack Obama’s signature initiatives while also giving the president a way to keep the pledge he made after Inauguration Day to treat the Dreamers with “great heart,” said sources on both sides of the issue who are involved in the discussions. An announcement could come as soon as Friday, just days before a deadline imposed by 10 states that threatened to sue the U.S. government if it did not stop protecting people brought into the country illegally as children. Advocacy groups that want to preserve the program are urging the White House to ask those states — led by hurricane-ravaged Texas — to postpone their Tuesday deadline. A delay would give those groups more time to negotiate, and it could give Trump the space to avoid making a major policy announcement while his administration is eager to remain focused on hurricane recovery efforts. But the president is under intense pressure to move quickly to end the program — called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or, more commonly, DACA — from groups that supported his candidacy because of his pro-deportation immigration position and his promise to end this particular program on his first day in office. Source

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) said Thursday he'll attempt to force a vote on a bill that would extend protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors. When he returns to Washington next week, Coffman said he'll file what's known as a "discharge petition" to force action on his proposal, known as the BRIDGE Act. If he can convince a majority of the House — 218 members — to join him, the House will be required to take up the measure later in September. Coffman's rarely used gambit comes amid reports that President Donald Trump may roll back an Obama-era program meant to protect undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors. The program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, has shielded about 800,000 immigrants from deportation and provided work permits. "#DACA participants grew up here, went to school here, and should be allowed to stay here. The time has come to take action," Coffman tweeted. The bill already has 12 Republican cosponsors in the House, in addition to Coffman. In the Senate, a companion measure was introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and it has support from GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) The measure extends protection — similar to that afforded under DACA — to those born after June 15, 1981, were brought to the United States before their 16th birthday and have lived in the United States since June 15, 2007. Applicants for protection must also be enrolled in school, have graduated from high school or have served honorably in the military. And those convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors would be barred from the program. Coffman's call is likely to draw support from Democrats, as well as other Republicans who have previously backed measures to protect those undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump called for eliminating the program, but he backed off shortly after winning the election. This week, his administration indicated he was reviewing the program and hadn't yet decided what to do. Trump said in February that he intended to deal with DACA enrollees "with heart." Coffman is also one of the more vulnerable Republicans in the House. Democrat Hillary Clinton won his district by a 50-41 margin. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...reamers-242227

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump...ry?id=49549362 As President Donald Trump considers whether to end the deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) policy that allows immigrants who were brought into the U.S. in their youth to remain in the country and obtain work permits, his vice president says that the determination is one that Trump will make with "big heart." "President Trump has said all along that he's giving very careful consideration to that issue and that when he makes it he'll make it with, as he likes to say, big heart," said Vice President Mike Pence in an exclusive interview with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl Thursday. The actual video interview is rather depressing, as Pence is deliberately avoiding discussing the impact of ending DACA. Anyhow, the exact meaning of Pence's "Big Heart" comment has been explained somewhere else. http://www.pressherald.com/2017/08/3...ivals-program/ WASHINGTON — President Trump is expected to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shielded young people from deportation, but he will likely let the program’s recipients stay in the United States until their work permits run out, according to multiple people familiar with the policy negotiation. That plan would allow Trump to fulfill a campaign promise to end one of Barack Obama’s signature initiatives while also giving the president a way to keep the pledge he made after Inauguration Day to treat these immigrants with “great heart,” said sources on both sides of the issue who are involved in the discussions.

President Donald Trump's reported decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program drew strong condemnation from Microsoft on Thursday. Trump is expected to announce as early as Friday that he will end the so-called Dreamers program, protects immigrants brought illegally to the US as children from deportation, Fox News reported Thursday. "Dreamers" currently in the Obama-era program are expected to be allowed to stay in the US until their permits expire, Fox reported. "These changes would not only negatively impact thousands of hardworking people across the United States, but will be a step backwards for our entire nation," Microsoft chief counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. In addition to disrupting the lives of people who voluntarily registered with the federal government and now face possible deportation, Smith said repealing the program could have significant economic consequences on the US. Ending DACA would cut $460.3 billion from the nation's GDP over the next decade, according to one study. There are currently about 800,000 immigrants registered with the federal government under the program. A group of conservative attorneys general have threatened to sue the Trump administration unless he begins to dismantle the program by Sept. 5. Smith went on to note that 27 Microsoft employees have benefited from DACA. "They are software engineers with top technical skills; finance professionals driving our business ambitions forward; and retail and sales associates connecting customers to our technologies," Smith wrote. "Each of them is actively participating in our collective mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." In another statement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared a personal story about the value he sees in the program. "As I shared at the White House in June, I am a product of two uniquely American attributes: the ingenuity of American technology reaching me where I was growing up, fueling my dreams, and the enlightened immigration policy that allowed me to pursue my dreams," Nadella wrote, adding that "smart immigration can help our economic growth and global competitiveness." The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-...trump-nadella

Acting head of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan told Sen. Ron Wyden the agency does not use cell-site simulators—a type of surveillance gear often referred to as a “Stingray” that can track down a specific mobile device by emulating cell phone towers—to locate undocumented immigrants. Per Ars Technica, the August 16th letter states ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations “does not use cell-site simulators for the purpose of civil immigration law enforcement.” But he added that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division, which targets national security threats and organized crime, uses the devices, though only after receiving a warrant. ICE Says It Doesn't Track Down Undocumented Immigrants Using 'Stingray' Devices Acting head of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan told Sen. Ron Wyden the agency does not use cell-site simulators—a type of surveillance gear often referred to as a “Stingray” that can track down a specific mobile device by emulating cell phone towers—to locate undocumented immigrants. Per Ars Technica, the August 16th letter states ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations “does not use cell-site simulators for the purpose of civil immigration law enforcement.” But he added that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division, which targets national security threats and organized crime, uses the devices, though only after receiving a warrant. Homan also noted that ICE agents sometimes work in joint task forces with other “federal, state and local law enforcement partners, in furtherance of our shared public safety mission”—and that in those cases, Stingrays may sometimes be used. That caveat is important: In March, ICE used a Stingray variant known as a Hailstorm to locate 20-year-old El Salvadorean man Rudy Carcamo-Carranza, who had entered the US illegally twice and was wanted in connection to alleged drunk driving and hit-and-run incidents. The ICE officer involved in the investigation, Jeremy McCullough, was a member of the ERO department but was also assigned to the FBI’s Violent Gang Task Force. So for ICE agents to use a cell-site simulator to track people suspected of immigration law violations, they just need to be assigned to such a unit. Source: http://gizmodo.com/ice-says-it-doesnt-track-down-undocumented-immigrants-u-1798136133

The Trump administration on Wednesday formally terminated an Obama-era program that granted Central American minors temporary legal residence in the United States, shutting the door on 2,714 people who had won conditional approval to enter the country. President Barack Obama’s administration established the “CAM parole” program in 2014 to respond to a massive spike in the number of unaccompanied minors and families entering the country illegally from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Under the terms, minors who failed to win refugee status could enter on a two-year, renewable parole if they had a parent already legally present in the country. But the program’s future was put in doubt in February when the Department of Homeland Security froze it and announced an internal review as part of President Trump’s executive orders aimed at tightening immigration controls. DHS’s termination announcement in the federal register means that the agency will begin the process of notifying families that the minors who had been approved for entry would have to reapply through other immigration channels that could be more difficult. In addition, 1,465 minors already in the United States under the CAM (Central American Minors) program will not be allowed to renew their status and must go through other means to try to extend their stays. Immigrant rights advocates condemned a decision that they said would plunge thousands of families into uncertainty. “Our concern is that the administration is completely abandoning these children and leaving them in a real situation of immediate danger,” said Lisa Frydman, a vice president at Kids in Need of Defense. DHS officials confirmed that the program had been rescinded and cited Trump’s executive orders on immigration from January as the impetus. Carter Langston, a spokesman at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the immigration parole system, said the department “will no longer automatically consider parole requests from individuals denied refugee status in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.” The Obama administration launched the program in December 2014 as part of a wide-ranging response to a surge in the number of minors making the often-treacherous journey from the Northern Triangle countries to reach the United States. That year, more than 60,000 unaccompanied children and about the same number of families entered the country illegally, flooding border patrol stations and adding to already lengthy immigration court backlogs. Obama aides cited rising poverty, drug trade and gang violence as causes of the spike. The CAM program aimed to provide an alternative path to enter the country for those who were unable to win refu*gee status or political asylum, either of which often requires applicants to prove they are victims of government-sponsored persecution. “It was a safety net for children who were in danger but whose parts of their stories might not match a certain class under refu*gee status,” said J. Kevin Appleby, a senior director at the Center for Migration Studies. Appleby said that ending the program “is mean-spirited. It’s not a large number of kids, and they’re really vulnerable.” USCIS officials said that 99 percent of those who applied won admission to the United States under the CAM refu*gee and parole programs. They emphasized that the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the special parole did not end their chances of coming to the country. Rather, they will now have to apply through the standard parole program that has been in place for far longer. According to USCIS, those who had won conditional approval under the CAM program but will no longer be permitted entry are 2,444 minors from El Salvador, 231 from Honduras and 39 from Guatemala. Since Trump took office, the number of people trying to enter the United States illegally across the border with Mexico has plummeted. The president has taken credit for the reduction, and immigrant rights groups acknowledge that Trump’s tough immigration rhetoric and DHS’s new enforcement policies have had a significant impact. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ampht...6ab_story.html