BATON ROUGE, LA – Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry applauded President Donald Trump’s decision to phase out the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which granted lawful presence and work permits to nearly one million unlawfully present aliens without Congressional authorization.  

On June 29, General Landry joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other state attorneys general in a letter to the Trump Administration – giving them a September 5 deadline to phase out DACA before the coalition would challenge the program in court. Today, the President announced he will be ending DACA.

“I applaud President Trump for phasing out DACA,” said General Landry. “This executive amnesty was another example of the Obama Administration bypassing Congress to advance its radical agenda.”

“Nearly 40,000 DACA recipients have been given green cards and over 1,000 recipients have become U.S. citizens, despite the Obama Administration’s initial pledge that the program would not confer such a path to citizenship,” explained General Landry. “What’s more: DACA allowed aliens to leave and re-enter our country; removed eligibility bars from Social Security, Medicare, and the Earned Income Tax Credit; and conferred eligibility for state benefits like driver’s licenses and unemployment insurance.”  

“As I have often said, the Executive Branch cannot simply sidestep the people’s elected representatives in the Legislative Branch,” concluded General Landry. “I am glad President Trump is defending the separation of powers, preserving the rule of law, and ending the unconstitutional DACA program.”

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A copy of the June 29th letter may be found at http://www.agjefflandry.com/Home/GetRelatedFile?articleId=1668