Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger on Tuesday blasted the Trump administration’s announcement to rescind DACA, calling the effort “misguided.”
“The Dreamers impacted by this cruel and misguided decision make significant contributions to our economy and our country,” said the top Disney executive in a statement.
“I urge Congress to take immediate bipartisan action to pass legislation that will protect these innocent people,” Iger added.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Trump administration will roll back the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which grants legal protections to about 800,000 “DREAMers” who entered the United States as minors, over the next six months.
According to the New York Times, Donald Trump is calling on Congress to replace the policy with legislation before it fully expires on March 5, 2018. The move puts a six-month expiration date on legal protections granted to roughly 800,000 “DREAMers” who entered U.S. as minors.
The government will no longer accept new applications from undocumented immigrants to shield them from deportation under the DACA program.
Trump’s plans to end the Obama-era program first surfaced over the weekend. Fox News reported earlier in the week that Trump was expected to terminate the program that prevents deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the country as children with parents who had not obtained proper documentation.