White House demands border wall funding, mass deportations in exchange for DREAMer protections

https://thinkprogress.org/daca-wall-deportations-ea5ace057835/


White House demands border wall funding, mass deportations in exchange for DREAMer protections
The Trump administration's new hard-line list includes draconian demands that seemingly contradict early agreement with Democratic leadership.
E.A. Crunden
Oct 9, 2017, 11:41 am


Funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a crackdown on children fleeing Central America are among the demands laid out by President Donald Trump’s administration in exchange for protecting hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.

According to a list released late Sunday night, the White House will ask Congress to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities in addition to funding Trump’s long-sought border wall and accelerating the deportations of children back to countries like Guatemala and Honduras — even if their safety is at risk from escalating violence. Family members of immigrants in the United States will also be barred from joining them. Other measures include hiring thousands of new immigration officials to oversee the proposed measures and appointing 370 additional immigration judges, along with 300 federal prosecutors.

Administration officials defended the demands, arguing the measures are essential to Trump’s long-term immigration vision.


But the demands threaten to unravel a precarious deal struck between Trump and Democratic leaders last month. Following Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative established by former President Barack Obama, lawmakers lobbied the president to reconsider. Approximately 690,000 undocumented immigrants are currently covered by the program, a temporary legal status that came at a steep price — recipients handed over a staggering amount of private data and information to the government in exchange for protection from deportation. Trump’s decision to phase out DACA has left the initiative’s recipients, also known as DREAMers, in a terrifying limbo, with many unsure of how their families and futures will be impacted.

In the weeks following Trump’s announcement, Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) appeared to strike a deal with the president, one that would protect DREAMers from deportation following a six month delay period laid out by the administration. According to initial reports, the agreement included an increase in funding for border security, without any additional funds for Trump’s border wall. But that relief was short-lived — administration officials pushed back almost immediately, arguing that no such deal had been made.

That back-and-forth left DREAMers in a state of anxiety, exacerbated by DACA’s looming deadline.

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https://thinkprogress.org/daca-wall-deportations-ea5ace057835/