Conservative pundit Ann Coulter, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, called him out for stalling on immigration promises, including deportation of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants.
Her tweet linked to an article from conservative news outlet The Daily Caller, headlined “Nearly 100,000 ‘Dreamers’ Granted Amnesty In Trump’s Opening Months” — part of the text in Coulter’s tweet.
Trump campaigned on a hard-line stance against immigrants who violated immigration laws, promising to deport them and to "immediately terminate" programs created during the Obama administration. One of the programs, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), gives deportation reprieves to immigrants who came as children and have no legal authorization to live here, so-called "Dreamers."
About a month into Trump's administration, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly rescinded all previous enforcement-priority memos. But he kept DACA and a November 2014 memo for a separate deferred action program that would have benefited immigrants in the country illegally who are parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
On June 15, the Trump administration revoked the memo that benefited the parents, but left DACA in place.
From January 2017 to March 2017, immigration officials approved more than 124,000 DACA applications: 107,524 renewal cases plus 17,275 initial cases.
The Daily Caller’s reporter, Alex Pfeiffer, told us he reached his estimate of 98,000 by dividing the number of cases approved from January through March by the number of business days in that period, and removing days in January that Trump was not in office. He only used business days in the calculation because those are the only days that USCIS accepts DACA applications.
Our own calculation using Pfeiffer’s parameters also got about 98,000. We asked USCIS for a month-by-month breakdown of approved applications, but did not receive the information by deadline.
Coulter did not respond to our inquiries sent via social media or her booking company.
The common reference for amnesty in modern American politics is the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, signed by President Ronald Reagan. The law paved the way for immigrants who were in the country illegally to become lawful permanent residents if they met certain requirements.
People in DACA are protected from deportation for two years and are eligible for work permits. Recipients can apply to renew their DACA protection but are not granted a lawful status. DACA is a temporary and limited kind of relief that can be revoked by the president, said Kevin R. Johnson, an immigration law expert and dean of the University of California, Davis School of Law.
“DACA does not create a lasting ‘amnesty’ and lawful permanent residence” as did the 1986 law, Johnson said.
Others see it differently. Based on the benefits it offers, DACA is amnesty, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors low-immigration levels.
“I would define an amnesty as such whenever the law is set aside and the normal penalty is waived as a matter of policy,” Camarota said. “The normal penalty for being in the U.S. illegally is removal.”
Our ruling
Calculations of the number of DACA applications approved January through March that only include days Trump has been in office show that, at least, about 98,000 were approved. Whether the program is amnesty, however, is subject to interpretation.
For that reason, we rate Coulter's claim Mostly True.
The Trump administration has granted amnesty to “nearly 100,000 ‘Dreamers’ “
— Ann Coulter on Thursday, June 8th, 2017 in in a tweet
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