Wisconsin Reacts to DACA Decision

RACINE, WI — Demonstrating in opposition of the sudden repeal of DACA, the federal policy that offered protections to people who entered the U.S. illegally as youth, more than 100 people marched the streets of Downtown Racine.

DACA currently extends protections to more than 6,500 people in Wisconsin. The demonstrators marched from Monument Square in Downtown Racine to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. statue carrying signs and banners, calling for the restoration of DACA among other topics, including the support for Racine to become a sanctuary city.

Students at local high schools in the city staged a hunger strike earlier in the week as a further demonstration against DACA's repeal.

DACA at a Glance

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy was signed into law in June 2012 as an executive order by then-President Barack Obama.

DACA allowed certain people who entered the U.S. illegally as youth to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit.

About 800,000 people (referred to as "dreamers" after the DREAM Act) were enrolled in the program as of 2017.

DACA Dies

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday morning that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama-era policy protecting about 800,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors, will be rescinded.

Starting on Wednesday, the administration will not accept any new applications for DACA. Registration in the program lasts for two years. Anyone whose registration expires in the next six months will have until Oct. 5 to apply for another two-year extension. But after DACA recipients' registrations expire outside the six-month window, they will not be able to reapply. This means, in part, that the hundreds of thousands of people who received work permits under the program will be forced to leave their jobs once their registrations expire.

In a statement issued from the White House Press Office after Session's press conference, President Donald Trump said, "I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws."

Wisconsin Reacts

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Janesville)

“However well-intentioned, President Obama’s DACA program was a clear abuse of executive authority, an attempt to create law out of thin air. Just as the courts have already struck down similar Obama policy, this was never a viable long-term solution to this challenge. Congress writes laws, not the president, and ending this program fulfills a promise that President Trump made to restore the proper role of the executive and legislative branches. But now there is more to do, and the president has called on Congress to act.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D)

"Putting the DACA program in place was the right thing to do and it has worked for the past five years. President Trump’s decision ends this protection and breaks a promise we have made to nearly 800,000 young people who are either students, serving in our military, or are working in a job contributing to communities across America. This move by the President is wrong. It tears families apart and prevents Dreamers from reaching their full potential. It is now more important than ever for Congress to take action and do right by Dreamers, who have only known America as their home and built their lives here. "

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