Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

Overview

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an immigration policy by former United States President Barack Obama. The policy protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, referred to as DREAMERs. The policy has been the subject of intense scrutiny from Republicans, who accused Obama of executive overreach when the plan was implemented. In 2017, President Donald Trump put the policy at the front of the country's immigration debate, giving congress until March 5th, 2018 to sign DACA into law or allow it to expire.

Background

DREAM Act

In 2001, the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) was a bill introduced into congress. The purpose of the bill was to grant legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought the U.S. as children.^[1] The bill did not pass. However, since its introduction, undocumented immigrants that would have fallen under the protection of the bill have been referred to as "DREAMers."

DACA

On June 15th, 2012, in a Rose Garden speech at the White House, President Barack Obama announced the DACA policy, which would prevent certain undocumented immigrants from deportation (speech below). The policy would also grant these immigrants the ability to obtain two-year work permits that could be renewed. However, the restrictions for the program included that the recipient must be younger than 31 as of June 15th, 2012, they must have been younger than 16-years-old when they were brought to the U.S., and must have lived in the country since 2007.^[2]

Developments

Republican Reaction

Republicans reacted negatively to Obama's policy, particularly in how it was executed. Many believed the maneuver to be example of executive overreach. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said, "The president’s action is an affront to the process of representative government by circumventing Congress and with a directive he may not have the authority to execute."^[3]

During the speech, a reporter for the conservative news website The Daily Caller interrupted the speech to ask a question about whether or not the policy was good for "legal American workers."^[4]

#burnmyMAGAhat

On September 5th, 2017, Donald Trump announced he would be repealing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA),^[7] a program from the Obama administration which allows children of undocumented immigrants to receive a two-year deferment from deportation and the possibility of attaining a work permit.^[5][8] Trump gave congress a six-month window to reach a legislative compromise on the act. However, on September 13th, 2017, Trump met with Democrats and following the meeting, Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer announced "We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that's acceptable to both sides." The following morning, Trump posted a series of cryptic tweets that seemed to say that while no deal was reached and he still wanted his promised wall on the border of Mexico and the United States, he did not want to deport hard working people in America (examples shown below).

While details of the meeting and potential agreement Trump made with Democrats remain unclear, Trump supporters, feeling betrayed by the news, responded angrily with the hashtag #AmnestyDon. On the morning of September 14th, Twitter account @TheRightDefense^[9] tweeted "Trump supporters have already started burning #MAGA hats and shirts in protest to Trump's amnesty. Everyone post videos of it. #AmnestyDon." @KausMickey^[10] quote-tweeted that tweet and suggested the #burnmyMAGAhat hashtag. Twitter account @TrumpTrumpsUp^[11] then tweeted a picture of a burning "MAGA":memes/make-america-great-again hat that afternoon (shown below).

For the remainder of the day, many more people posted their burning MAGA hats under the hashtag.

Trump's Shithole Comments

During such immigration negotiations on January 12th, 2018, President Trump invited representatives from congress to discuss a bipartisan immigration deal. When the prospect of protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries, the president reportedly said, "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?"^[6]

According to people familiar with the meeting, Trump continued that the U.S. should bring in more immigrants from countries, like Norway, before saying, "Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out."

Following Trump's alleged remarks, many online denounced his assertion to that those countries are "shitholes." On Twitter, many people said that this was another example of President Trump's perceived attitudes towards non-white people (examples below). Some went on to say, "Trump is a racist."

Online Discussion

Since its announcement, DACA has been a topic of discussion on various online forums, especially since it has been reintroduced into the public consciousness with the deadline imposed by President Trump. On Reddit, the subject has been discussed in numerous subreddits.

On September 4th, 2017, Redditor^[12] CommonsCarnival posted in the /r/politics subreddit that Bernie Sanders called "Trump ending DACA 'one of the ugliest and cruelest decisions ever made by a president.'" Within four months, the post received more than 28,000 points (78% upvoted) and 5,100 comments.

That day, Redditor^[13] SpicyComment posted a picture of a man holding a sign with a "Roses are red"/memes/roses-are-red-violets-are-blue poem on it in the /r/PoliticalHumor subreddit. The image (shown below, left) reads "Roses are red, tacos are enjoyable, don't blame Mexicans cause you're unemployable." The post received more than 32,000 points (75% upvoted) and 2,400 comments in less than six months.

On January 15th, 2018, Redditor^[14] TooShiftyForYou posted an image in the /r/pics subreddit with the heading "On MLK Day, ICE deports Jorge Garcia, a married father of 2 kids in metro Detroit who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years. He was brought to the U.S. when he was 10 years-old by undocumented family members, making him too old to qualify for DACA." The image (shown below, right) received more than 92,000 points (70% upvoted) and 9,000 comments in less than one month.

Additionally, threads in /r/politics,^[17][18][19] /r/The_Donald, ^[20][21] /r/IAmA^[22] and more.

#GoNancyGo

On February 7th, 2018, House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor for more than eight hours to push for a vote on DACA. The speech was the longest speech on the floor since 1909.^[15] However, despite this Speaker of the House denied the vote.

Online, people applauded Pelosi's filibuster under the hashtag "#GoNancyGo." Twitter user @KaivanShroff tweeted,^[16] Nancy Pelosi is a 77-year-old wealthy white woman who could be sipping rosé on a beach anywhere in the world right now, but instead she has been on her feet for nearly 7 hours fighting for DREAMers. She is the best of the Democratic Party no matter what some might say. #GoNancyGo" The tweet (shown below) received more than 9,500 retweets and 35,000 likes in six days.

Search Interest

External References