Hispanic Business Leader Resigns From Trump’s Diversity Council After DACA Decision

“There is no letter, this is it, this is the resignation,” president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce says on HLN

President of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Javier Palomarez resigned from Donald Trump’s White House Diversity Council live on HLN’s “Across America with Carol Costello” Tuesday morning.

“I have resigned. There is no letter, this is it, this is the resignation. I tried to work as hard as I could with this administration on the issue,” Palomarez said to Costello after hearing the news that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) will be phased out over the next six months.

“I continue to want to work with them on other issues like tax reform and healthcare reform and so, so many other important things, I don’t see the logic in doing what we are doing right now,” Palomarez continued.

When Costello asked Palomarez if he was truly “resigning on HLN right now,” he responded:

“I am resigning right now from that council. I don’t see the point in continuing to try to work with people that clearly don’t see this issue the way I do. This was the only thing we were focused on and I never believed in the wall, I did not stand in the way of the wall,” he said. “Nobody was going to die if a wall got built. We are talking about people’s lives here and chief among them are the young people. People who are brought here of no knowledge or any kind of decisions of their own. They were brought here on average of the age of six or younger. They have worked hard to become good American citizens. We should be protecting these people and not expelling them from this country.”

Earlier Tuesday, he told HLN’s Poppy Harlow that “I am out if Trump ends it,” referring to DACA.

Palomarez and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce endorsed Hillary Clinton in the election, but has been seeking to work with Trump on a number of issues since the president took office.

The Trump administration announced Tuesday the decision to phase out the DACA program, which has given legal protections to 800,000 “DREAMers” who were brought to the United States as minors.

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