Oklahoma Senator James Lankford thinks Congress can come up with a fix for President Obama’s program known as DACA before President Trump pulls the plug on it in two months.
"If we need to be able to extend some access between now and then to be able to protect those individuals, that’s good, but the people who are exposed right now are people that, really, didn’t sign up again and didn’t renew in time again for DACA," Lankford told MSNBC this weekend. "Those that are in the DACA that did their renewal, they are still in protected status and will stay that way.
Around 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children are protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Lankford told Fox News this weekend they should be able to stay.
"Those individuals should have the opportunity to be able to get in line and to be able to get naturalization at some point. But, for the parents, I don’t believe that they should," Lankford said. "They intentionally violated the law. Now, there may be a way to be able to do some work permits and other things for them, but not citizenship on that. They’re the ones that intentionally violated the law as an adult."
While Lankford is optimistic a way will be found to let DACA recipients stay in the country, he told MSNBC border security measures will also be part of the conversation.
"Whatever we do for those DACA, we also need to deal with some border security and be able to help send messages to Central America as well, that, hey, this is not just a welcome for everyone to be able to come. It’s for a select group," Lankford said.
DACA recipients will start losing protection from deportation March 5 if nothing is done.
