Captain America isn’t known for his spokesman-like powers, but his cinematic portrayer Chris Evans stepped up to the plate yesterday.
After President Trump announced that he would be ending DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in six months, potentially expelling 800,000 undocumented children from the country, Twitter erupted in outrage.
Even former President Obama, who established DACA via an executive order, cast aside his reticence to criticize his successor. “To target hopeful young strivers who grew up here is wrong because they’ve done nothing wrong,” he tweeted and linked to a statement on his Facebook page. “Ultimately, this is about basic decency,” he wrote. “This is about whether we are a people who kick hopeful young strivers out of America, or whether we treat them the way we’d want our own kids to be treated. It’s about who we are as a people – and who we want to be.
Obama’s post got over 800,000 Likes on Twitter and 1.3 million on Facebook, and it was Evans who won the award for pithiest response. “Thank you,” he tweeted. “I was starting to forget what a president is supposed to sound like.”
Thank you. I was starting to forget what a president is supposed to sound like. https://t.co/zv7zSpJIKA
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) September 5, 2017
After sending Attorney General Jeff Sessions out to make the statement ending DACA yesterday morning, Trump has shifted the burden to Congress, instructing them to come up with a plan within six months. But throughout the day, Trump appeared to waver, saying he had “great heart” for Dreamers yesterday afternoon and tweeting, “Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can’t, I will revisit this issue!”
Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can’t, I will revisit this issue!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
It’s unclear what “revisit” means. Some commentators have expressed concern that Trump doesn’t fully understand what DACA repeal means. “Just one hour before his decision was set to be announced, administration officials apparently expressed concern that the president might not grasp the mosaic implications of his statement, and once he started to see tangible results, he would change his mind,” reported Vanity Fair. One senior White House aide told Politico he didn’t believe Trump would actually end DACA if Republicans couldn’t agree on a plan.
A study by the Center of American Progress showed that losing all DACA workers would drain $433 billionfrom the U.S. economy.
