U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press about the $1.3 trillion spending bill passed by Congress early Friday, with Vice President Mike Pence (L), in the Diplomatic Room of the White House on March 23, 2018 in Washington, DC. After threatening to veto the legislation earlier today, President Trump announced he had signed the bill, avoiding a government shutdown. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Calling BS on Omnibus Veto Threat, Dreamers Not Fooled for a Second Trump Cares About Them
"Only thing more insulting than using DACA as a fig leaf for a veto threat was the fact that everyone knew he'd back down anyway."
Giving credence to those arguing his veto threat was either an impulsive "bluff" or a "temper tantrum," President Donald Trump signed the massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill on Friday afternoon, but immigrant rights groups and Dreamers were not even a little bit fooled that the president's bloviating and political head-fake had anything to do with protecting them.
"If Trump truly cared about a solution, he would push for a permanent solution and wouldn't have killed all bipartisan proposals," Paul Quinonez, an undocumented resident of Washington state and a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA), told Al Jazeera in the wake of Trump's veto threat.
Already approved by the House, the U.S. Senate rammed through the spending bill overnight, but on Friday morning Trump took to Twitter to say that despite the threat of a government shutdown if he failed to sign it by midnight, he was considering a veto.
Within hours Trump proved his veto threat was exactly that when he signed the spending bill at the White House, but Quinonez wasn't alone in calling bullshit on the way the president tried to frame the DACA issue in the context of the omnibus.
As Dara Lind writes at Vox, the "only thing more insulting than using DACA as a fig leaf for a veto threat was the fact that everyone knew he'd back down anyway."
Immigrants rights advocates were extremely unimpressed:
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Giving credence to those arguing his veto threat was either an impulsive "bluff" or a "temper tantrum," President Donald Trump signed the massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill on Friday afternoon, but immigrant rights groups and Dreamers were not even a little bit fooled that the president's bloviating and political head-fake had anything to do with protecting them.
"If Trump truly cared about a solution, he would push for a permanent solution and wouldn't have killed all bipartisan proposals," Paul Quinonez, an undocumented resident of Washington state and a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA), told Al Jazeera in the wake of Trump's veto threat.
Already approved by the House, the U.S. Senate rammed through the spending bill overnight, but on Friday morning Trump took to Twitter to say that despite the threat of a government shutdown if he failed to sign it by midnight, he was considering a veto.
Within hours Trump proved his veto threat was exactly that when he signed the spending bill at the White House, but Quinonez wasn't alone in calling bullshit on the way the president tried to frame the DACA issue in the context of the omnibus.
As Dara Lind writes at Vox, the "only thing more insulting than using DACA as a fig leaf for a veto threat was the fact that everyone knew he'd back down anyway."
Immigrants rights advocates were extremely unimpressed:
Giving credence to those arguing his veto threat was either an impulsive "bluff" or a "temper tantrum," President Donald Trump signed the massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill on Friday afternoon, but immigrant rights groups and Dreamers were not even a little bit fooled that the president's bloviating and political head-fake had anything to do with protecting them.
"If Trump truly cared about a solution, he would push for a permanent solution and wouldn't have killed all bipartisan proposals," Paul Quinonez, an undocumented resident of Washington state and a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA), told Al Jazeera in the wake of Trump's veto threat.
Already approved by the House, the U.S. Senate rammed through the spending bill overnight, but on Friday morning Trump took to Twitter to say that despite the threat of a government shutdown if he failed to sign it by midnight, he was considering a veto.
Within hours Trump proved his veto threat was exactly that when he signed the spending bill at the White House, but Quinonez wasn't alone in calling bullshit on the way the president tried to frame the DACA issue in the context of the omnibus.
As Dara Lind writes at Vox, the "only thing more insulting than using DACA as a fig leaf for a veto threat was the fact that everyone knew he'd back down anyway."
Immigrants rights advocates were extremely unimpressed: