Trump ends amnesty for 800,000

Washington DC : President Donald Trump yesterday ended an amnesty that protected from deportation 800,000 people brought to the United States illegally as minors.

Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the decision to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, calling it an “open-ended circumvention of immigration laws” and an unconstitutional use of executive authority.

“I am here today to announce that the programme known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama Administration is being rescinded,” Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions said.Sessions argued the amnesty put in place by former president Barack Obama was unconstitutional and “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”

“The executive branch through DACA deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorise on multiple occasions,” Sessions said. The Trump administration has given Congress until March 5 to pass legislation to replace DACA. 

According to administration officials, the government will no longer accept new applications from undocumented immigrants to protect them from deportation under the programme.