The outcry over President Donald Trump's call to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is coming for people on the left who will be angry no matter what he does, Rep. Sean Duffy said Wednesday.
"He could have ended it yesterday, but he gave a six-month window for Congress to do its job," the Wisconsin Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program, explaining he believes it was compassionate for Trump to say he wanted to take care of young people who came to the United States through no fault of their own.
"I thought he was spot on," Duffy added. "This gives us an opportunity to not just deal with the Dreamers, but also deal with the root cause of what brought us Dreamers, — an insecure southern border, whether we build a wall, fence, use drones or sensors. We have to secure the southern border to accomplish both things."
Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2009 and 2010, but did not deal with the Dreamers affected by DACA.
"They didn't take up this cause and help the kids," Duffy said. "It was [Sen.] Marco Rubio in 2011 who had a bill to deal with the dreamers. President Barack Obama jumped in ahead of him and did this executive action."
Democrats talk about it being cruel to end DACA, which defers deportation for two year periods to allow people brought in as undocumented children to remain in the United States, he added, but it's more cruel to have an open border encouraging parents to come in with their children.
Further, if the borders aren't secured, Duffy said there will be "Dreamers for the next 20, 50 years, coming to this country. Let's deal with the 800,000 today, but fix the problem, so in the long run, we don't have this situation 10, 15, 20 years from now."