President Trump’s former acting Homeland Security secretary purposely decided not to include policy reasons in her memo to end the “Dreamers” program because she didn’t believe Trump administration officials’ grounds to end it, according to a report.
The absence of those reasons became the crux of the Supreme Court’s ruling last month blocking the White House’s efforts to end the Obama-era program.
Elaine Duke said she was “ambushed” by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Trump adviser Stephen Miller during a White House meeting in August 2017, telling the New York Times that “the room was stacked.”
She said she didn’t list policy reasons because she did not agree with Sessions and Miller that allowing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals would lead to more illegal immigration and resulted in an unjustified amnesty.
“What was missing for me is really that process of discussing it,” she said. “It is a grave decision not only from a legal standpoint but from the effect it will have on not just 700,000 people but 700,000 people plus their families.”
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