Bill Clark/ZUMA
Amid a national uproar over the Trump administration’s announcement ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program this week, President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to try and reassure the initiative’s 800,000 recipients that they wouldn’t face deportation—at least for the next six months.
The unexpected tweet came one day after the president insisted he had “no second thoughts” about rolling back the program.
For all of those (DACA) that are concerned about your status during the 6 month period, you have nothing to worry about – No action!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2017
What happened? It turns out, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called up Trump this morning hoping to convince him to send a message of hope to Dreamers. A Democratic aide told the Daily Beast: “Pelosi told her colleagues at a whip meeting this morning that she spoke to Trump this morning via phone and asked him to tweet this to make clear Dreamers won’t be subject to deportation in a six-month window.”
Pelosi’s role in influencing Trump’s tweets came just hours after Trump infuriated Republican leaders by cutting a deal with Democrats over the debt ceiling.
In fact, DACA recipients whose statuses are slated to expire in March do have something to worry about: recipients whose statuses expire in March are required to renew their applications before the October 5 deadline.