WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Friday that President Donald Trump should not terminate a program protecting young undocumented immigrants who come to the U.S. as children, even though he and other Republicans have repeatedly tried to end it in Congress. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Trump will announce on Tuesday whether he will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which protects nearly 800,000 young men and women from deportation. Ryan said, “I actually don’t think we should do that.”

Ryan says, “This is something that Congress has to fix.”

And Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch sent out a statement in anticipation of a Trump announcement on Friday saying he’s urged Trump not to revoke former President Barack Obama’s efforts to protect “individuals who entered our country unlawfully as children through no fault of their own and who have built their lives here.” “I believe that this is something that Congress has to fix.”

Ryan’s statement offers the most public support by anyone in the Republican congressional leadership for some sort of legislation to protect the “Dreamers” under DACA. The popular Obama administration program -- which gives protections from deportation to undocumented immigrants that were brought to the US as children to work or study -- has long been targeted by Republicans as an overreach of executive authority. Along with attempting to end DACA, Ryan voted in 2010 against the Dream Act, which would give a path to citizenship to Dreamers, and declined to hold a vote on comprehensive immigration reform. “These are kids that know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don’t know another home, and so I really do believe there needs to be a legislative solution, that’s one that we’re working on.”

Trump vowed during his presidential campaign to end DACA, which he, like Ryan and other Republicans, has said is unconstitutional. And so I really do believe there that there needs to be a legislative solution.”

Asked whether he’s made a decision on DACA, Trump said: “Sometime today, maybe over the weekend.”

“We love the Dreamers,” he said. Tennessee’s Republican attorney general, Herbert Slatery, said his office will not participate in a lawsuit challenging DACA that is expected to be filed by a group of Republican state attorneys general next week, and urged Congress to pursue a legislative fix. Trump has been torn over what to do with DACA as he faces a Tuesday deadline set by a group of Republican state lawmakers who are threatening to challenge the program in court unless Trump ends it by that date.
Paul Ryan (R-WI), U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives, urges President Donald Trump not to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protects immigrants who illegally entered the U.S. as children from deportation.