President Trump’s decision to end the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (better known as DACA) seems like a political loser. Polling shows that most Americans support the program, which protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children from deportation, and don’t want participants removed. This includes, in some polls, a plurality of Republicans. That may be why some congressional Republicans have lined up behind a bill that essentially reinstates DACA.
A DACA-like bill could be approved by Congress. But there’s a big force in the way: Anti-immigration sentiment in the Republican Party. DACA may be popular, even among some Republicans, but hardline immigration policy has been growing as an animating force in GOP politics for years. It helped put Trump in the White House. CONT.
Harry Enten & Perry Bacon Jr., FiveThirtyEight