New Trump Immigration Memo Revives Call for Obama to Pardon All Undocumented Immigrants, Extend DACA

A newly revealed memo from President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team sheds light on his plans to reverse immigration policies put in place by the Obama administration, and asks for data on recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This comes as more than 100 members of Congress sent a letter to Obama in December asking him to take action to protect their names and private information. “We all asked these young people to come forward, willingly and voluntarily, and guaranteed them that the information about themselves, and, more importantly, their parents and relatives in this country that might or might not be undocumented, would be protected,” says our guest Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. We also speak with César Zamudio, a freshman at Columbia University who is an undocumented immigrant and a recipient of DACA.

TRANSCRIPT

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A newly revealed memo from President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team sheds light on his plans to reverse immigration policies put in place by the Obama administration and to expand the border wall. It reportedly asked the Department of Homeland Security about its ability to expand the use of immigrant detention centers and an aerial surveillance system, and whether federal workers altered biographic information kept about immigrants. An agency official told Reuters it interpreted the request to mean the transition team wanted to ensure workers were not altering the data in order to protect recipients of President Obama’s executive order known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which has so far shielded 750,000 young people from deportation.

AMY GOODMAN: More than 100 members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama in December asking him to take action to protect the names and private information of those enrolled in DACA. In a minute, we’ll be joined by one of its lead signatories. Human rights advocates have also called…

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