Gingrich: Trump’s DACA plan is ‘real leadership’

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Tuesday praised President Trump for demonstrating “real leadership” with his decision to rescind a program that shields young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents from deportation.  

“This is one of the best examples of real leadership that we’ve seen from President Trump,” Gingrich, a staunch supporter of the president, said on “Fox & Friends.”

“He campaigned last year on the fact that President Obama’s executive order was unconstitutional,” he continued. “His vice president [Mike Pence], as governor of Indiana authorized his attorney general to file a lawsuit saying it was unconstitutional. Every one of the president’s major legal advisers say it was unconstitutional. But he also knew that to arbitrarily stop it would put 800,000 people at risk, who came here as children, who really, in many cases, have no other country in their experience than the United States.

{mosads}”And so I think he has come up with a very powerful model,” Gingrich concluded. “Congress, which did not want him to roll back arbitrarily, Congress now has to do its job. This should be doable. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the Trump administration will phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which began via executive order under President Obama in 2012, over the next six months to allow Congress to act. 

“The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded,” Sessions said.

Democrats slammed the decision.

“President Trump is breaking his promise to hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who were brought here as children — through no fault of their own — and today know only America as their home,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.