Trump Has Attorney General Announce End Of DACA, Sparing President Who 'Loves The Dreamers' The Discomfort Of Personally Ending Protections For 800,000 Of Them

WASHINGTON. The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it would rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, ending the deportation protections and renewable work permits held by roughly 800,000 immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and who, in many cases, retain no functional memory of any other country.

The announcement was delivered not by the President but by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who described the 2012 program as "an unconstitutional exercise of authority" and read his remarks at the Justice Department while the President remained elsewhere in the building. Officials confirmed the arrangement was deliberate, permitting the President to dismantle a program protecting young people he has repeatedly described as beloved without occupying the room in which it occurred.

"We love the Dreamers," the President told reporters that afternoon, employing the present tense to characterize his feelings toward a population whose legal status his administration had spent the morning setting to expire. He had previously called the matter "one of the most difficult" subjects he faced, a difficulty he resolved by assigning it first to his Attorney General and then to Congress.

Under the plan, the program will not terminate at once but will instead be wound down over six months, an interval the administration presented as a courtesy to the legislative branch. "Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA," the President wrote, observing that the prior administration had been unable to do so and adding that, should Congress likewise fail, he would "revisit this issue," a phrase officials declined to clarify. The structure ensured that ultimate responsibility for the fate of 800,000 people would attach to whichever branch of government touched the question last.

Legal observers noted that the affected recipients had submitted to background checks, paid application fees, renewed their status every two years, and in many cases enrolled in college, joined the armed forces, or paid federal taxes, all on the understanding that the government had invited them to come forward and identify themselves by name and address. The rescission converted that voluntary registry of cooperative young people into something closer to a directory.

At press time, the President had assured Dreamers months earlier that they could "rest easy," a recommendation his administration had spent Tuesday rendering structurally impossible.