Demonstrators marched in Philadelphia Tuesday morning after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that President Donald Trump had decided to end a program for immigrant “dreamers.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, "is being rescinded."
"The executive branch through DACA deliberately sought to achieve" what Congress did not choose to enact, Sessions said, calling the Obama-era law "an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch."
Obama's DACA program has provided nearly 800,000 young immigrants a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work legally in the U.S.
Sessions said the Department of Justice advised President Donald Trump to begin "an orderly, lawful wind-down" of the program — which acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke has accepted — arguing it would be struck down in court like another immigration policy of President Barack Obama's was.
The wind-down gives Congress a chance to create a law to replace DACA, Sessions said. "We firmly believe this is the responsible path."
The pan to wind down DACA was met with demonstrations including a group of dozens of people who marched from Old City -- following a demonstration at 2nd and Chestnut streets -- toward the city’s Ice building at 8th and Arch streets where they stopped and the crowd began to thin out.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
No reports of any injuries or arrests.
