DACA Announcement Is Political “Persecution” of Immigrants

Washington, D.C., September 5, 2017  – In response to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s announcement today that the Trump Administration will rescind immigrant protections provided under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron released the following statement:

“The Trump Administration continued its persecution of immigrants today, targeting hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable among the immigrant community. This action will rip apart families and jeopardize the lives and safety of young people who have lived most of their lives as Americans and know no other home. Make no mistake, the Attorney General’s fearmongering about crime and terrorism in his statement today was nothing more than a dog whistle to a nativist and anti-immigrant base that is increasingly the sole audience the Trump Administration seeks to address. Republicans can deny it, but Sessions’s hostility to immigrants was apparent in his record well before his confirmation, and any senator who voted to confirm him did so knowing full well that today’s action was the likely result. No one should be fooled either by the administration’s pretense that it is acting today in the interests of constitutionality, since this administration has repeatedly shown its contempt for the Constitution.”