Representative Lou Correa (D-CA)
greets supporters before the start
of a press conference with Senate
and House Democrats to urge
congressional Republicans to stand
up to President Trump’s decision to
terminate the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative.
Although polls showed strong public
support for providing Dreamers with
a pathway to citizenship, it is not
unusual for congressional leaders
to use a consensual policy (DACA)
to help pass more-controversial
legislation (building the wall with
Mexico). This issue demonstrates how
members of Congress make tough
decisions, often involving political
trade-offs and compromises.Late in the first year of his presidency, Donald Trump announced that he would end
President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on March 5,- The program allowed residents who were brought illegally to the United States as
children to remain in the country if they had graduated from high school, were currently
in school, or had served in the military, and had not committed a felony. President Trump
expressed strong support for the program, calling the 700,000 people enrolled “incredible
kids.” However, Trump believed that President Obama had overstepped his authority
by creating the program through executive action, so Trump asked Congress to create a
legislative solution.^1 In a meeting with congressional leaders early in 2018, President Trump
said that he would sign whatever compromise on DACA that Congress could agree to. Polls
showed that between 73 and 87 percent of Americans favored allowing the Dreamers, as
program participants are called, to stay and have a path to citizenship.^2
One would think that enacting a policy that is supported by more than three-fourths of
Americans, the president, and both parties in Congress would be a no-brainer. But shortly
before the March 5 deadline, the wheels came off. Democrats initially tried to attach the
DACA bill to a must-pass budget bill, but this effort failed after a three-day government
shutdown. Democrats agreed to a two-year budget bill three weeks later, but without a
resolution to the DACA issue. In a reversal of his earlier position that he would sign any
DACA bill that Congress put forward, President Trump took a hard line against bills that
did not include $25 billion in funding for the border wall with Mexico and that did not
“I have offered DACA a wonderful deal, including a doubling in the number
of recipients and a twelve year pathway to citizenship.”
President Donald Trump“I do not believe we should be granting a path to citizenship to anybody
here illegally.”
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)“We want a clean DREAM Act. That is what it’s going to take for me and
others to sign on.”
Representative Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL)11
Congress
Who does Congress
represent?
3 74Full_12_APT_64431_ch11_374-417.indd 374 16/11/18 10:29 AM