WASHINGTON (AP) – The calls began in the hours before Donald Trump took the oath of office.
The president-elect was attending a morning prayer service and many in the party were celebrating a long-awaited return to power. But incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus was in a van, parked outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, fielding phone calls from anxious Republicans all asking the same question:
What was the new president going to do about DACA?
The Inauguration Day worries about Trump’s campaign promise to “immediately terminate” the program that protects some young immigrants from deportation would soon turn into a quiet lobbying push from powerful Trump advisers, public pressure from business groups, a deadline from Republican state officials and a tug-of-war within the West Wing. After months of wrestling with a decision, Trump on Tuesday declared he would slowly unwind the program – while he hoped Congress would do “something.”
Trump’s compromise was a public recognition of the political perils involved in scraping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which had been instituted by outgoing President Barack Obama and protects nearly 800,000 young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. While the tough talk of abolishing an “amnesty” program may have fired up parts of the GOP base, the reality of potentially deporting young people proved deeply uncomfortable for a new president who has repeatedly insisted he wanted to show “heart.”