Fact-Checking the Trump-Sessions DACA Statement

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It probably should not come as a surprise that the Trump Administration’s statement on DACA is full of inaccuracies. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has provided us with an annotated version of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ statement on Trump’s decision to halt President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, showing at least 26 examples of inaccuracies (if not outright lies) – DO READ!

Here are a few things citizens can do to protest the Administration’s stance on DACA and support the “dreamers:”

  • Sign a petition. MoveOn.org has one example.
  • Participate in a demonstration.
  • Contact your federal elected representatives. Encourage them to support bipartisan legislation that puts DACA language into law.
  • Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.
  • Contact the White House. Even if Trump never reads your offering, you might make someone on his staff think about the issue.
  • Beware of the proposed RAISE Act. SPLC states that this “reflects the shameful agenda of nativists and white nationalists who fear the growing diversity of our country.”

As has been noted many times since Trump started threatening DACA, recipients are our neighbors, co-workers, and friends. They serve as law enforcement officials, military personnel, and teachers. They contribute to the US economy in a number of ways. Recipients are heavily vetted: they do not get a “free ride” in any way. The main reason that President Obama needed to enact DACA in the first place is that Congress did not take action; and remember that Congressional Republicans had vowed from Day One of President Obama’s Administration that they would obstruct all of his initiatives. 

Trump’s using the “overreach” argument against Obama to rescind DACA and negatively impact the lives of millions of American citizens is abhorrent and another way in which Trump will go down as the most callous, juvenile, pathological and hypocritical President in our history.