While Dreamers Are in Purgatory, the GOP Is in Hell

For months, Donald Trump seemed genuinely torn over what to do about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Obama-era initiative that shields immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as kids. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to end DACA, but he’s since softened his tone, saying the decision was one of the most difficult he faced and that he would show “great heart” toward the roughly 800,000 so-called Dreamers protected by DACA.

In June a group of Republican state attorneys general, led by Ken Paxton of Texas, decided to force the president’s hand and threatened to sue if he didn’t end DACA by Sept. 5. Heading into the Labor Day weekend, as reports circulated that Trump would soon rescind the program, the president still struck a supportive tone. “We love the Dreamers!” he told reporters on Sept. 1. Four days later the White House finally said it would rescind DACA and give Congress six months to come up with a solution to the Dreamers’ plight. Trump also had Attorney General Jeff Sessions take the stage. In a 10-minute statement, Sessions leveled a blistering critique of DACA, condemning it not only as an illegal overreach by President Barack Obama but as bad policy, saying it denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors to the border, and created “terrible humanitarian consequences.”