Trump suggests no DACA deal

World
Europe

‍US President Donald Trump suggested Sunday that there would be no deal to legalize the status of hundreds of thousands of "Dreamers", the term for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

"No MORE DACA DEAL!" Trump said in an emphatic tweet Sunday morning. DACA refers to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama administration program that shields Dreamers from deportation.

Trump shut it down last fall but gave lawmakers six months to come up with a permanent solution.

Demonstrators raise their fists in protest of President Trump's attempts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an executive action made by former president Obama that protected minors known as Dreamers who entered the country illegally from deportation, outside of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2018. /VCG Photo

Though Congress has been unable to reach a consensus on the issue and stalled the progress, legal challenges to the Trump order have managed to keep DACA in place for now.

The president tweeted a claim on Sunday that Border Patrol agents can't do their jobs properly because of "ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws" that allow people caught for illegally staying in the country to be released while awaiting a hearing, and urged Republicans in charge of the Senate to "go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws."

Immigration activists hold signs during a protest on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2018. /VCG Photo

In order to end debate and move forward towards a vote on a measure or piece of legislation, rules require at least 60 votes in the 100-member Senate, but Republicans now only control 51 seats, and GOP Senate leaders have opposed Trump's repeated call to change the longstanding rules.

While stressing his signature border wall promise, Trump lashed out at Mexico for "doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the US."

"They must stop the big drug and people flows, or will stop their cash cow, NAFTA," the president said of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada, that Washington is trying to rewrite.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency