Trump’s Decision To End DACA Leaves Thousands Of Mass. Young People In Limbo
People gathered at Faneuil Hall in Boston Tuesday to protest the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted temporary status to some people whose parents brought them into the country illegally as children. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR
The future for thousands of young people in Massachusetts is unclear after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the Trump administration would end the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
“We are people of compassion, and we are people of law,” Sessions said in a statement Tuesday. “But there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws.”
DACA granted temporary status to some people whose parents brought them into the country illegally as children. Since then-President Obama initiated the program in 2012, 800,000 eligible recipients nationwide have been able to study and work in the U.S. under this temporary status — including about 8,000 in Massachusetts and close to 15,000 throughout New England.