e_Paper, Thursday, September 7, 2017

News
9
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2017
DT
UN probe finds Syrian govt behind sarin gas attack in April
• Tribune Desk
UN-mandated investigators said
Wednesday that Syrian President
Bashar Assad’s air force conducted
a sarin-gas attack in the spring
that killed at least 83 civilians and
sparked a retaliatory US strike.
The investigators also appealed
What happens to Dreamers
after Trump revokes their
residence rights?
• AFP, Washington, DC
WORLD
The Trump administration on
Tuesday ordered the end of
the “Dreamers” programme
that allowed illegal immigrants
who came to the United States
as children to remain in the
country.
That move threatens the
futures of some 800,000 people,
many now in schools, with
jobs and families in the United
States.
What is the ‘Dreamers’
programme?
In a presidential order in June
2012, president Barack Obama
launched DACA – Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals
– that aimed to provide a stable
future for people who arrived in
the country illegally as children
and stayed. Dubbed “Dreamers”,
they were granted under
presidential order the right to remain
and study or work legally,
renewing their status regularly.
The programme was devised
after Congress failed to pass legislation
to address the status of
millions of illegal immigrants
who had lived in the country for
decades, many with families,
permanent homes and businesses.
DACA applied to people who
were under the age of 31 as of
June 15, 2012, and had been
continually present in the US
since 2007. It covered anyone
in school or who had a graduate
certificate, who was serving in
the armed forces, and who had
never been convicted of a serious
crime.
Why end DACA?
But Trump argued that DACA
protected people who broke US
laws, was unfair to legal immigrants,
and encroached Congress’s
power to make immigration
laws.
The government also argued
that legal challenges by a number
of states made DACA and a
2014 sister programme, DAPA,
untenable.
DAPA was a proposed Obama
programme to open the way for
other illegal immigrants, those
who came as adults, to gain legal
status, but was blocked from
implementation by legal challenges.
Recently Texas led other
states in a threatened action to
similarly seek to block DACA.
Faced with legal challenges,
the Trump administration said it
falls to Congress to fix the problem,
not the executive branch.
But legal experts say Obama’s
DACA order was constitutionally
sound and would survive court
challenges. “The least disruptive
alternative would have been
to let the DACA programme continue,”
said Stephen Yale-Loehr
of Cornell University.
What happens to the Dreamers?
Encouraged by Obama’s move,
about 800,000 people registered
under DACA, confident
that they would be safe from
expulsion. Now the government
has access to all their personal
data, making it hard for most to
hide.
About 200,000 of them will
see their resident permits expire
by the end of 2017. Another
275,000 expire in 2018, and the
rest between January and August
2019.
Under Trump’s order, those
with permits are safe until their
expiry. People with permits
that expire within the next six
months – before March 5, 2018 –
can apply to renew them before
October 5. But new applications
will not be accepted.
Once their DACA permits expire,
individuals will not have
the legal right to work, and
theoretically could be deported
any time – though current
policy only threatens illegal immigrants
who have committed
serious crimes.
The White House has indicated
that the six month grace period
gives Congress an opportunity,
if it wants, to come up with
legislation that could replace
DACA and strengthen its legal
foundations. •
to the US-led coalition to better protect
civilians as it strikes at Islamic
State militants in the east.
The latest report by the Commission
of Inquiry on Syria offers
among the strongest evidence yet of
allegations that Assad’s forces conducted
the April 4 attack on Khan
Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib province
in which dozens of people were
killed. The United States quickly
blamed the Syrian government and
launched a punitive strike on Shayrat
air base, where the report says
the Sukhoi-22 plane took off.
Syrian government officials have
denied responsibility, and said last
month that they would allow in UN
teams to investigate.
“We have analysed all the other
interpretations” of who might have
conducted the attack, commission
chairman Paulo Pinheiro said at a
Geneva news conference. “It is our
task to verify these allegations, and
we concluded ... that this attack was
perpetrated by the Syrian air force.”
Wednesday’s report, the 14th by
the commission since it was set up
by the UN’s Human Rights Council
in 2011, covers little more than four
months, from March to early July.
The report is based on information
retrieved from satellite images, video,
photos, medical records, and
over 300 interviews. •