VOA常速英語：特朗普廢除奧巴馬“童年抵美者暫緩遣返”(DACA)計劃

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The United States has ended a program that shielded nearly 800,000 young, undocumented immigrants from deportation and allowed them to work and study in the country.

New applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, will no longer be accepted, administration officials said.

President Donald Trump approved the decision, but sent Attorney General Jeff Sessions before news cameras Tuesday to announce the controversial policy change. Demonstrators opposed to the administration's decision massed in Washington and other cities beforehand, but there were no confrontations.

"DACA is being rescinded," Sessions announced. The action revoked President Barack Obama's five-year-old administrative program.

The future status of the hundreds of thousands of young, foreign-born students and workers is unclear for now, since they are no longer protected from summary deportation by the DACA program. Congress will have six months to act if it wants to continue to allow them to remain in the United States.

The young immigrants typically entered the United States as young children. Many trace their heritage to Mexico or Central American countries, but some arrived so young that they have grown up knowing nothing other than American society and customs.

Anyone who joined the "deferred action" program for work and study was required to have and maintain a clean criminal record. DACA did not promise participants citizenship or permanent U.S. residency, instead promising a reprieve from deportation. The program was initially intended as a stop-gap measure to protect aspiring young immigrants, while Congress was to come up with a more lasting solution to their problems.

"I have a love for these people," Trump said at the White House late Tuesday, "and, hopefully, now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly."

Earlier, he had issued a written statement declaring that federal immigration patrols would not make seeking out DACA recipients for detention and deportation a priority issue.

Obama criticizes move

Former President Obama, who has refrained from commenting on most of the policy changes Trump has enacted this year, spoke out strongly against ending the DACA program, and said the current administration was carrying out a purely political decision and targeting young people who "have done nothing wrong."

Obama said ending DACA was "self-defeating" and "cruel," whether considered in political, economic or moral terms, "because [the young immigrants] want to start new businesses, staff our labs, serve in our military, and otherwise contribute to the country we love."

Officials of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes immigration and border-patrol officers, told reporters Tuesday they would not actively pursue the people who had been protected by DACA, at least for the next six months. However, many of the young people who have now become vulnerable to immigration action said they are greatly worried about the future.

"This is the only country and the only place that I know is home," Sarai Bravo told VOA in New York City. "I'm not planning on leaving unless I'm forced to. So I'm going to continue fighting, coming with the rest of the community and encouraging people to come out and fight. That is my plan, trying to stay here forever," she said.

Action by Congress is not certain. Lawmakers have been unsuccessful for years in their efforts to substantially revise U.S. immigration policies. During Obama's eight years as president, the Senate — controlled by members of his Democratic Party for most of that time — approved major policy changes only to see the legislation fail in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Activist Gustavo Torres told the crowd: "This president lied to our community. ... He told us, 'I have a big hope for you dreamers.' He's a liar!"

Trump's campaign promises included a vow to eliminate DACA, although he eased up on that anti-immigrant rhetoric on a number of occasions. Since his inauguration in January, however, the president has strengthened and prioritized the country's deportation system, calling for the hiring of thousands more immigration and border agents.

In his statement issued after Sessions' announcement, Trump said: "I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are [a] nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws."

Sessions, an immigration hardliner who had pressed Trump to end the program, said, "We cannot admit everyone who wants to come here. All cannot be accepted." Limiting immigration, he added, "means we are properly enforcing our laws."

The attorney general took no questions from reporters.

Obama skewered the Trump administration's decision in a statement late Tuesday: "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.

"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."

March 5, 2018

Once current DACA status expires for current recipients, they could be subject to deportation proceedings if detained, but government officials said no current beneficiaries would be affected before March 5, 2018. DACA recipients whose permits expire before that date will be allowed to renew their status, but they must act within one month. DHS officials said no other renewal requests would be considered and all new applications will be rejected.

The acting chief of the Department of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke, said "the administration's decision to terminate DACA was not taken lightly."

"The Department of Justice has carefully evaluated the program's constitutionality and determined it conflicts with our existing immigration laws," she said.

Attorneys general from Texas and several other states on or near the southern U.S. border with Mexico are said to have set Tuesday as a deadline for revocation of DACA, and to have told Homeland Security officials that they would otherwise seek a court order to overturn the program. Conservative lawmakers and some Republican officials have long contended that Obama's order amounted to impermissible executive overreach.

An immigration hardliner, Dave Ray of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said DACA was bad public policy. "Should we allow the DACA recipients to profit from the lawbreaking of their parents?" he asked. "We don't allow parents to skirt laws by using their children as shields."

VOA's Victoria Macchi and Ramon Taylor contributed to this report.