DACA under fire

By TED HESSON
07/10/2017 10:00 AM EDT

DACA UNDER FIRE: Texas and other Republican-led states continue to pressure the Trump administration to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants deportation relief and access to work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age.

In late June, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his counterparts in nine other states sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions that asked the administration to rescind the 2012 memo that created the DACA program, which shields more than 787,000 people from deportation. If not, the AGs threatened to expand ongoing litigation against a separate 2014 deportation relief program to include DACA. On Friday, Texas filed a motion to stay the litigation until Sept. 5, a move it said would give the administration time to consider its request.

The pressure from Texas could potentially jump-start conversations about a legislative solution for people enrolled in the program, according to Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors lower levels of immigration. But could congressional leaders find common ground? Krikorian fears Republicans might trade DACA legalization for border wall funding or relatively minor enforcement measures.

“If I were Schumer, my realistic goal would be to trade a real green card amnesty for the DACAs in exchange for several billion dollars of funding for the wall,” Krikorian told Morning Shift. “That would be a complete disaster for the White House, [and] that would be an epic failure of dealmaking ... I’m for amnesty for people like that. I just don’t want to give it away for nothing.”

http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-shift/2017/07/10/daca-under-fire-221237