Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel handed President-elect Trump a letter on Wednesday that urged him to extend protections provided by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program “until Congress modernizes our immigration system.”
In a private meeting, Mayor Emanuel hand-delivered a letter from US mayors to the President-Elect urging him to continue the DACA program. pic.twitter.com/MQgxENfSai
— Mayor Rahm Emanuel (@ChicagosMayor) December 7, 2016
The letter, signed by 17 mayors, argued that “DACA is good for our economy” while highlighting the bipartisan support such protections have enjoyed previously.
DACA was an executive order intended to provide work permits and protections to children who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their undocumented parents.
Trump suggested in an interview with TIME made public Wednesday that he might not strip the so-called “Dreamers” who benefit from DACA of their protections, as Democrats have warned he might do.
“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” he said of Dreamers. “They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here.” .
Emanuel entered Trump Tower early Wednesday morning through a back entrance as he headed to his first meeting with the president-elect.
The Chicago mayor has publicly pledged to fight Trump’s proposal to end the practice of “sanctuary cities” where municipal law enforcement does not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Chicago is one such sanctuary city.
Trump and Emanuel reportedly spoke by phone last week about transition logistics, given Emanuel’s experience participating in the transitions of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
The Trump transition team provided few details about the nature of Trump’s meeting with Emanuel, who also served as a senior aide to Bill Clinton and White House chief of staff for Obama.
