Originally Posted by jaylove16 (Post 592298)

We’re trying in a variety of different ways, directly and indirectly, to tell them this would be a disaster for 744,000 DACA recipients and this would be a disaster politically, because of all the friends and family that they have,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who came up with the concept of DACA in 2010, said in an interview.


A middle-ground option would allow Trump to phase out the program by allowing existing work permits, which are issued for two years at a time, to expire naturally without renewing them — a path recommended by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). A variation of this option would be to let the program phase out for a few months, but choose a firm date — for instance, the end of this year — when all the existing work permits would be declared invalid.

Or Trump could leave the program intact for a while, perhaps arguing that he wants to give Congress time to work on legislation that might address the Dreamers, his promise of a border wall, guest worker visas and related immigration issues.
“For people who already have the permits, you wouldn’t take it away from them and they wouldn’t be allowed to renew it, and that gives us time to find a legislative solution,” Rubio said of his preferred method, which would appear to result in more and more permits expiring over time unless Congress acts. “I’m going to wait and see what the White House wants to do.”

Still, some of Trump’s DACA options have their own complications, particularly if he chooses to summarily shut down the program on Day One.



During the debate over the legality of Obama’s moves, some experts noted that an executive action issued by President George H.W. Bush and covering large numbers of immigrants involved a kind of bridging action or reprieve that allowed those individuals to stay for a while as Congress worked to address the issue.
While all that is being worked out, Democrats and advocates are devising their own strategy on how to handle immigration in the Trump era. The four Senate Democrats in the “Gang of Eight” three years ago — Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chuck Schumer of New York, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado — huddled last week to begin discussions about how to do that, including ways to protect DACA beneficiaries, aides said.
Durbin said he personally hasn’t been in direct contact with the incoming administration, but the Obama White House has, at least to raise the topic.

Others, however, dismissed the likelihood that the new Trump administration would launch its deportation agenda by going after Dreamers — traditionally the most sympathetic group of immigrants without legal status.
“Why would you spend time going through a database of telegenic illegal aliens when you’ve got wife beaters and drunk drivers to deport?” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors more restrictive immigration laws. “Purely as a matter of PR, it’s hilariously improbable to do that
.”

“I’ve always wanted to protect the Dreamers, so we’re just trying to see the best way to do” that, Flake said. “My preference would be to work with the administration on legislation that we could then do.”

Some advocates are guardedly optimistic about Trump’s post-election tone. They point out that his recent statements haven’t alluded to mass deportations, while noting his comments from last week about seeking broad legislation on immigration

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/1...reamers-232149