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Trump’s DACA Flip-Flops: A Timeline

A look at the president's varied opinions ahead of his first State of the Union address

Protesters chant and wave signs across the street from the Phoenix Convention Center where President Donald Trump held a rally on Aug. 22, 2017. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Protesters chant and wave signs across the street from the Phoenix Convention Center where President Donald Trump held a rally on Aug. 22, 2017. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Since launching his presidential campaign in 2015, President Donald Trump has gone back and forth on his opinion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

The waffling even contributed to a federal government shutdown earlier this month. Both parties in Congress are scrambling to find a compromise to maintain the program ahead of an early March deadline that could result in recipients’ deportation if no solution is reached.

On the campaign trail, the president vowed to eliminate the program, which grants some 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children — known as Dreamers — protection from deportation. But just before his inauguration, he seemed to soften his stance. 

Recently, and just ahead of Trump’s first State of the Union address, the White House proposed a path to citizenship for DACA recipients in return for a limit on chain migration and $30 billion for the president’s Southern border wall.

Here’s a detailed look at his opinions on DACA — favorable, unfavorable and uncertain — through time:

 

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