Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Friday that he would advise President Trump to end DACA now, or Mr. Trump will face political consequences.
“The legal question isn’t even a close one. You’ve already had multiple courts say that a similar amnesty that came a few years after DACA was completely illegal,” Mr. Kobach, Kansas Republican, said on Fox News. “It’s a loser. And the president, if he were to continue DACA, would lose in court and politically.”
“It would be a very bad political construction because his base would be cheering against him when his administration loses,” he said.
DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — is an immigration policy started under former President Barack Obama to allow certain illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to stay. Mr. Trump has said he wanted to end the program, but has since been open to preserving parts of it in a slower phase-out method.
“There is a way the president can do it that does show some compassion for the situation of these people and that is to simply allow them to expire. And so a person who got a DACA amnesty yesterday has two years to live and work in the United States. Allow that person’s amnesty, illegal though it is, to continue for two years,” Mr. Kobach said.
A group of 10 states have given the president a deadline of Sept. 5 to make a formal decision. After that, the states have said they will take the issue to court.
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Mr. Kobach also serves as vice chairman to Mr. Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity and announced plans to run for governor in Kansas earlier this year.
• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.
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