When the Trump administration announced last week that it would cancel the yet-to-be-implemented DAPA program, which would have provided deportation relief for some immigrant parents, while maintaining the DACA program, which temporarily shields some DREAMers from deportation, major anti-immigration groups were less than thrilled.
Immigration restrictionists cheered the DAPA move but were clear that they expected President Trump to fulfill his campaign promise of eliminating the DACA program as well.
In an interview with a Tucson radio station on Saturday, the Center for Immigration Studies’ Jessica Vaughan said that she had been speaking with administration officials and concluded that they “probably have a strategy” for ending the DACA program at a later date.
“I think there’s conflict within the White House about what to do about DACA and possibly what we’re seeing is that they have not yet figured out how to go forward with this, or maybe they have and they wanted to get rid of DAPA first and then move forward with some sort of proposal on DACA,” Vaughan said on “The Morning Ritual with Garrett Lewis.”
She said that while it would be “politically explosive” for Trump to just stop issuing DACA permits, it would be a “great opportunity for President Trump to lead” if he could present a plan ending the program to Congress.
While she said that “somebody has given President Trump cold feet on this,” she added that “certainly there are folks within the White House who would be advocating, I think, for ending the program. I do believe that they probably have a strategy. From the folks that I’ve talked to within the administration, they’re not talking about it, but I did not get the impression that there was no plan.”
