Trump has been using immigrants enrolled in theĀ Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as bargaining chips to get his border wall funded, but on Tuesday, a federal judge halted the administration’s plans to end this Obama-era program. At least temporarily.
Judge William Alsup of California ruled that the review of renewal applications must resume; the administration stopped receiving them in September when it announced the end of DACA.
Alsup’s ruling applies to DACA enrollees nationwide, arguing that the issue “reaches beyond the geographical bounds of the Northern District of California. The problem affects every state and territory of the United States.”
A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Trump from ending the DACA program that protects young undocumented immigrants from deportation. The ruling followed a bipartisan immigration meeting. @MargBrennan reports https://t.co/NM45q9dwSv pic.twitter.com/SLdybfQtXp
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— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 10, 2018
DACA recipients are immigrants who arrived to the United States as children. The program shields them from deportation and gives them a renewable work permit.
While Trump has repeatedly claimed that he wants to treat them with “heart” and suggested he doesn’t truly want them to suffer, he has had no issue essentially holding their fates hostage as a way to force Congress to approve funding for the unrealistic and extremely expensive fence he wants built along the U.S.-Mexico border.
