"Perhaps fearing the political fallout, White House officials told the Times later on Friday morning that the memoranda issued the night before did not represent a final decision, and that the president might yet resume his previous position. As always with President Trump: who knows? Yet the direction of movement is becoming more obvious."

This looked like the beginning of a legislative strategy on immigration reform: preserve DACA as a potential concession to be offered in a trade for other things sought by immigration restrictionists, including reducing the total number of immigrants, rebalancing immigration away from adult relatives of recent immigrants to very highly skilled workers, and implementing more effective enforcement measures. (The Cotton-Perdue bill in the Senate contains the full wish list.)

Trump defenders may counter that the Trump administration simultaneously cancelled another Obama executive-amnesty program, which extended protected status to unauthorized immigrants who are parents of people with U.S. residency rights, including DACA beneficiaries, a population of potentially 5 million people. But that huge program was stopped by the courts in 2015 and never went into effect. A 4-4 Supreme Court left in place the appellate court holding that DAPA (as the adult program is known) exceeded presidential power. Finishing it off is an act of administrative cleaning up.