Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sent out a tweet criticizing President Donald Trump following reports that he intends to end protections for illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.
Ros-Lehtinen, who in 1989 became the first Cuban-American ever elected to Congress, also urged her fellow congressmen in another tweet to defend those who are currently protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which was initiated by former President Barack Obama in 2012 through a policy memorandum and not via Congressional legislation.
Trump is expected to announce an official decision on the issue on Tuesday.
Ros-Lehtinen, who is not seeking re-election next year, has been a regular critic of the Trump administration, HuffPost reported.
She voted against the GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and also criticized the president's decision to ban transgender people from serving in the military.
Some 800,000 people are protected by DACA, a small portion of the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to live in the United States, according to Politico.
Even among some of those who support massive deportations of undocumented immigrants, there is more sympathy for those who arrived as children and have lived almost their entire lives in the United States.
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