As the White House debates whether to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Republican congressional leaders are pressuring the president to keep the Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a radio interview Friday that DACA should stay even though President Obama acted unconstitutionally when he established it.
“I don’t actually think he should do that. I believe that this is something that Congress has to fix,” Ryan said. “President Obama does not have the authority to do what he did… Having said all of that, there are people who are in limbo. There are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don’t know another home. And so I really do believe that there needs to be a legislative solution.”
Ryan’s statement echoes the sentiments of Republican leadership in the Senate, who chafed when President Obama went over their heads on the program but acknowledge there should be a mechanism for illegal immigrants to get jobs and not fear deportation.
“I’ve urged the President not to rescind DACA, an action that would further complicate a system in serious need of a permanent, legislative solution,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said in a Friday statement. “I’ve long advocated for tougher enforcement of our existing immigration laws. But we also need a workable, permanent solution for individuals who entered our country unlawfully as children through no fault of their own and who have built their lives here. And that solution must come from Congress.”
But if congressional Republicans want to address DACA themselves, they may be running out of time to do so: Congress is already staring down the barrel of a daunting legislative calendar for the fall, including fights over funding the government, raising the debt ceiling, and trying to pass tax reform. And states that argue DACA is an illegal program aren’t likely to wait for them. A coalition of 10 states, led by Texas, has pledged to sue the government if Trump does not announce he will end it before Sept. 5.
