After the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s nefarious plan to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which grants work authorization and renewable two-year protection from deportation for children brought to America without documentation, last month, the mustache-twirling villains at the Department of Homeland Security retreated to their plotting cave in order to workshop ideas around new ways to antagonize kids. And the answer was diabolically simple: just ignore what the Supreme Court told them to do and pretend-read the decision.
As of today, the DHS will no longer be accepting new DACA applications and will limit renewals to one year from two as it finds new approaches to scrap the program completely, according to a memorandum released by the department. And though a federal judge literally just ordered them to continue accepting applications and this move is sure to land them back in court, the White House continues to insist that the program is “winding down,” even as it appears the fight for DACA is heating up:
“When the administration next acts on DACA, it will be the basis of the comprehensive review of the substantive legal and legal policy justifications offered for winding down the program,” an anonymous White House official told CNN.
The memorandum further explained that ending programs to help children will send a clear message to the rest of the world: The U.S. hates children. Keep them away:
“Concern that the existence of a program like DACA may send mixed messages about DHS’s intention to consistently enforce immigration laws as Congress has written them” the memorandum reads. “And concern that the existence of a program like DACA may encourage individuals to take a perilous journey to this country, needlessly endangering children.”
Next up in the White House’s war on kids will be sending the ones that are still here to public school during a pandemic, because needlessly endangering children is perhaps the last area in which the U.S. still excels. [CNN]
- Republicans do not want citizens to have any money right now, but while the purse strings are untied, a new FBI headquarters might be nice. [Washington Post]
- But this is the first Mitch McConnell has heard of it. [Twitter]
- To be fair, Nancy Pelosi’s “$600 or bust” statement did offer two choices, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that Democrats are currently considering the merits of bust. [CNN]
- Why would this Republican senator photoshop his opponent’s nose to look bigger? Don’t overthink it; the most obvious answer, anti-Semitism, it the correct one. [HuffPost]
- Looks like Kayleigh McEnany had it coming out of both ends. (She was allegedly receiving fraudulent payments, y’all, don’t be gross.) [Salon]
- Anti-Antifa continues to be a scourge on our communities. I’m certain the president will address the dangers posed by this mysterious group of roving thugs hurting our precious statues in an ominous warning tweet fairly soon unless there’s some other reason he keeps prattling on about bad people being mean to statues. [WSLS 10]
- Portland protesters are suing the Trump administration following weeks of harassment, shootings, beatings, and what they say are illegal arrests, which is a pretty peaceful move from a group deemed so “dangerous and vicious” federal law enforcement had to be sent in to keep them from being so hateful to the statues. [NPR]
Correction (10:00 p.m. EST): A previous version of this post incorrectly claimed that DACA provided a path to citizenship for undocumented children, and as many helpful readers have pointed out, it does not. Jezebel regrets any credit for helping children the blog may have inadvertently and erroneously given the United States government.