Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen went on national television Tuesday morning to lie about Donald Trump’s racist “shithole countries” rant, so why in the world would anyone believe her claim that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients won’t get swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs if they lose their protections?
Wait—deferring the deportation of young undocumented immigrants? If only there were some sort of government program that did this in the first place.
According to CNN’s David Wright, Nielsen also claimed that "if you are a DACA that's compliant with your registration, meaning you haven't committed a crime, and you in fact are registered, you're not priority of enforcement for I.C.E. should the program end." Tell that to University of California, San Diego student Orr Yakobi, a DACA recipient who taken into ICE custody this month for taking a wrong turn at the border. Or Juan Manuel Montes, who last year became the first Dreamer deported in the Trump era.
And, despite Nielsen’s claim, there are no enforcement priorities because Trump threw them out. “Nielson’s assurances to Dreamers isn’t worth a damn,” tweeted immigration attorney David Leopold. “Her own statements contradict everything [Jeff] Sessions and [John] Kelly have said to justify the mass round up of immigrants; her comments also flatly contradict the Interior Enforcement Executive Order and DHS Immigration Enforcement priorities. Stop the lying.” And pass the DREAM Act now.