Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the Trump administration was rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that began under former President Barack Obama, and defended the move as one aimed at ending the “lawlessness” that Obama created with his unilateral executive action.

“[T]he executive branch, through DACA, deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions,” Sessions in prepared remarks from the Justice Department in Washington. “Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.”