A mid-morning tweet from President Donald Trump confirmed what U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had planned to announce — that the executive order signed by then-President Barack Obama, which bypassed Congress in granting citizenship to illegal aliens 16 years old and under — should be decided on Capitol Hill.
Trump’s Twitter salvo may have been inspired by New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick:
A day after the National Football League released a special documentary rehashing the Patriots’ unprecedented Super Bowl comeback victory, titled Do Your Job Part 2, Trump coincidentally used the same expression in verifying his plan for dealing with the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive act.
Trump is giving Congress six months to do its job.
A brief review of the executive order itself, which Obama launched in June 2012, shows that the then-president took steps to promote the slogan “DREAMers” to promote his so-called “DREAM Act.”
“It says that if your parents brought you here as a child, if you’ve been here for five years, and you’re willing to go to college or serve in our military, you can one day earn your citizenship,” Obama said during his speech from the Rose Garden. “And I have said time and time and time again to Congress that, send me the DREAM Act, put it on my desk, and I will sign it right away.”
Congress never acted, but Obama nevertheless issued an executive order.
After Trump announced his administration would allow the GOP-controlled Congress to decide the issue, Obama took to social media to unload on his successor and defend his own administration’s actions:
“For years while I was president, I asked Congress to send me such a bill,” Obama wrote. “That bill never came.
“And because it made no sense to expel talented, driven, patriotic young people from the only country they know solely because of the actions of their parents, my administration acted to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people, so that they could continue to contribute to our communities and our country.”
Obama acknowledged that his executive order “was not required legally” but that did not stop him from ripping Trump’s decision to send it back to Congress.
“It is self-defeating – because they want to start new businesses, staff our labs, serve in our military, and otherwise contribute to the country we love,” Obama wrote. “And it is cruel.
“What if our kid’s science teacher, or our friendly neighbor turns out to be a Dreamer?”
Obama’s defenders later vented their outrage via social media, including purportedly impartial White House correspondents, such as the New York Times‘ Glenn Thrush:
Trump: Congress, do your job!
Truman: The buck stops here.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has yet to announce whether she will join New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and challenge Trump’s decision in federal court.
