DACA protections have been granted to more than 750,000 people in a country.
U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to rescind the DACA program that protects nearly 600,000 undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children but will allow them to stay until their work permits expire, a senior administration official has said.
Trump’s decision could be announced as early as Friday but could also come next week, said the official, who added that the president could always change his mind, according to Reuters.
Trump had pledged during his campaign to scrap all former President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration, including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
What to do about the so-called Dreamers has been actively debated within the White House and Trump administration. One senior administration official described the debate as a “tug of war” between factions in favor of the move and those opposed.
Officials, believing the DACA program to be ultimately unconstitutional, want congress to impose a legislative fix for the Dreamers, two officials said.
Established in 2012, DACA grants young immigrants living in the United States two-year renewable work permits and a reprieve from deportation proceedings. DACA protections have been granted to more than 750,000 people in a country with an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Rebecca Alexander, an assistant professor of Education Studies at DePauw University, referred to DACA as “room to breathe. Not just for young people but for their families.”
She noted that “as a white, U.S.-born citizen, the passage of DACA was the moment I realized illegality is socially constructed – it is something we make up, something we invent, something we do to people, and something that can be, instantaneously undone.”
Alexander concluded that similar to many of Trump's executive actions, ending DACA would be “an act of violence, a violation of human rights.”
Original article appears on teleSUR English.