Trump administration sends immigration policy wish list to Congress

The Trump administration has sent an immigration policy wish list to Congress that threatens to derail efforts to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from being deported.

The Trump administration wants tougher immigration and border security measures, crackdowns on sanctuary cities, green card restrictions and funding for the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall.
The Trump administration has asked lawmakers to include tough border security and immigration enforcement measures in any deal to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that the administration is ending. Those measures include provisions to make it harder for unaccompanied minors to enter the country illegally, money for the President's border wall and cuts to legal immigration, the CNN reported.

"These priorities are essential to mitigate the legal and economic consequences of any grant of status to DACA recipients," White House legislative director Marc Short said .

Short further said,"They fulfill the President's promise to advance immigration reform that puts the need of American workers first."
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Trump's support for law to protect 'Dreamers' lifts its chances

An unexpected meeting of the minds between President Trump and Democratic leaders on Thursday made real a possible deal in Congress to pair enhanced border security with legislation to protect young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.

One day after Mr. Trump hosted Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi for dinner at the White House, the president said he could support legislation to protect the young immigrants known as “Dreamers” from deportation if it were accompanied by a “massive” border security upgrade. Acceding to a key Democratic demand, Mr. Trump said such a package did not need to have funding for a border wall.

It was the second time this month that a tentative agreement announced by Democrats left Republican leaders in Congress scrambling to adjust a legislative agenda that appears increasingly set by the party out of power in the House, the Senate and the White House.

“We’re working on a plan for DACA,” Mr. Trump told reporters, referring to protections for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as he prepared to leave the White House for Florida. He added, “The wall will come later.”
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US lawmakers broker DACA deal with Trump to protect illegal migrants

Top House and Senate Democrats have announced agreement with President Donald Trump to protect certain immigrants brought illegally to the US under the DACA programme, media reports said.

The agreement was announced in a joint statement from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

It was following a dinner the pair had with Trump on Wednesday at the White House, New York Post reported.

The statement said they and Trump have "agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that's acceptable to both sides", Fox News said.

The agreement would specifically not include Trump's long-sought border wall, the Fox report said.

It would enshrine protection for the nearly 800,000 immigrants who benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by former President Barack Obama that Trump has announced he would be ending.
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'It's outrageous, it's not right': 15 states, DC sue Trump admin over DACA

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia sued the US government to block President Donald Trump's plan to end protection against deportation for young immigrants who New York's attorney general labeled the "best of America."

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday asked a judge to strike down as unconstitutional the president's action involving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

It called the move "a culmination of President Trump's oft-stated commitments ... To punish and disparage people with Mexican roots."

Also Read:  Trump ends DACA: All you need to know about it and how Indians are impacted

The attorneys general who brought the lawsuit all Democrats represent states where the population of DACA participants known as "dreamers" ranges from hundreds to tens of thousands. They were brought to the US illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas.

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Trump moves to end DACA and calls on Congress to act

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.”

Protests broke out in front of the White House and the Justice Department and in cities across the country soon after Mr. Sessions’s announcement. Democrats and some Republicans, business executives, college presidents and immigration activists condemned the move as a coldhearted and shortsighted effort that was unfair to the young immigrants and could harm the economy.

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Trump ends DACA: Obama slams decision, calls it 'wrong' and 'cruel'

Former US president Barack Obama has decried his successor Donald Trump's decision to end an amnesty for 800,000 people brought to America illegally as children, calling it "wrong," "self-defeating" and "cruel."

"To target these young people is wrong, because they have done nothing wrong. It is self-defeating because they want to start new businesses, staff our labs, serve in our military, and otherwise contribute to the country we love. And it is cruel," he said in a statement yesterday hours after US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has been rescinded.

"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?" Obama questioned.

He said the move was not "required legally", while terming it a "political decision".

Trump scrapped the Obama-era amnesty programme that granted work permits to immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children, a move likely to impact 800,000 undocumented workers including more than 7,000 Indian- Americans.
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Trump ends 'Dreamer' immigration programme, 800,000 face unsure future

President Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped an Obama-era programme that protects from deportation immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children, delaying implementation until March and giving a gridlocked Congress six months to decide the fate of almost 800,000 young people.

As the so-called Dreamers who have benefited from the five-year-old programme were plunged into uncertainty, business and religious leaders, mayors, governors, Democratic lawmakers, unions, civil liberties advocates and former Democratic President Barack Obama all condemned Trump’s move.

The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, who called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme an unconstitutional overreach by Obama. There will be an “orderly, lawful wind-down,” Sessions said.

Trump later issued a written statement saying that “I do not favour punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognise that we are (a) nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”
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