The president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce resigned Tuesday from President Donald Trump’s National Diversity Council, following Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement that Trump had ended the DACA program.
“I officially resign from that council, effective immediately,” Javier Palomarez told HLN’s Carol Costello. “There is no letter. This is it. This is the resignation.”
#BREAKING: Javier Palomarez resigns from Trump’s WH National Diversity Council due to DACA decision. Live on @HLNTV: https://t.co/6FQCxjMJDM
— Carol Costello (@CarolHLN) September 5, 2017
Earlier Tuesday, just before Sessions’ announcement, Palomarez promised to resign should Trump rescind DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects nearly 800,000 undocumented young people from deportation.
“These are exactly the kind of young people we need in America, and we have a President that committed to taking care of them, and in fact said he would focus his energy on removing criminals,” Palomarez said.
The program will accept no new applicants starting Wednesday. A Department of Homeland Security official told reporters on background Tuesday that DACA recipients whose permits expire before March 5, 2018 would be eligible to re-apply for an additional two years of protection.
Hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients with permits expiring after that date, however, could soon see the information they gave the government as part of the program’s application used to deport them.