Obama Calls Trump Move “Cruel” in Emotional Defense of DACA
Photo: Getty.
Former president Barack Obama stepped out of semi-retirement on Tuesday to blast the Trump administration for its “cruel” decision to rescind protections for “Dreamers” and issue an emotional appeal to Congress to save some 800,000 young immigrants from deportation. “Ultimately, this is about basic decency,” he wrote. “This is about whether we are a people who kick hopeful young strivers out of America, or whether we treat them the way we’d want our own kids to be treated. It’s about who we are as a people—and who we want to be.”
Hours earlier, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the administration would be rescinding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, better known as DACA, a policy Obama instituted in 2012 to allow undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to apply for renewable permits protecting them from deportation and allowing them to work in the country legally. Nearly 800,000 people applied for DACA status, entrusting the federal government with information identifying them as undocumented. On Tuesday, the Trump administration violated that trust, insisting that while DACA recipients wouldn’t be prioritized for deportation, they would be treated the same as any other illegal immigrant.
“Immigration can be a controversial topic,” Obama conceded, explaining that he was forced to take action after Congress repeatedly failed to write legislation addressing the millions of people in the country illegally. “Because it made no sense to expel talented, driven, patriotic young people from the only country they know solely because of the actions of their parents, my administration acted to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people, so that they could continue to contribute to our communities and our country.”
“But today, that shadow has been cast over some of our best and brightest young people once again. To target these young people is wrong – because they have done nothing wrong. It is self-defeating – because they want to start new businesses, staff our labs, serve in our military, and otherwise contribute to the country we love. And it is cruel.”
The nearly 900-word statement, posted on Facebook, was an unusually public rebuke from the former president, who has largely avoided his successor. Obama has rarely interjected himself in national politics since leaving office, only explicitly criticizing Donald Trump when he signed an executive order banning travel from several majority-Muslim countries, in January, and again in June, when Senate Republicans released a draft version of their Obamacare replacement. In both instances, the former president conspicuously avoided mentioning Trump by name, a pattern he continued in his denunciation of the president on Tuesday.
Let’s be clear: the action taken today isn’t required legally. It’s a political decision, and a moral question. Whatever concerns or complaints Americans may have about immigration in general, we shouldn’t threaten the future of this group of young people who are here through no fault of their own, who pose no threat, who are not taking away anything from the rest of us. They are that pitcher on our kid’s softball team, that first responder who helps out his community after a disaster, that cadet in ROTC who wants nothing more than to wear the uniform of the country that gave him a chance. Kicking them out won’t lower the unemployment rate, or lighten anyone’s taxes, or raise anybody’s wages.
The majority of Trump voters agree. According to a Morning Consult poll from April, 73 percent of registered Republicans believe immigrants protected by DACA should be allowed to remain in the United States; 48 percent said they should have a path to becoming U.S. citizens.
Obama had faced criticism for using his executive authority to circumvent Congress—a decision he defended again on Tuesday as “based on the well-established legal principle of prosecutorial discretion”—but expressed the hope that lawmakers, this time, would finally hammer out a compromise. “I’m heartened by those who’ve suggested that they should. And I join my voice with the majority of Americans who hope they step up and do it with a sense of moral urgency that matches the urgency these young people feel.”
“What makes us American is not a question of what we look like, or where our names come from, or the way we pray. What makes us American is our fidelity to a set of ideals – that all of us are created equal; that all of us deserve the chance to make of our lives what we will; that all of us share an obligation to stand up, speak out, and secure our most cherished values for the next generation. That’s how America has traveled this far. That’s how, if we keep at it, we will ultimately reach that more perfect union.”
This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.
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