President Barack Obama got the United States into legal gray areas by signing a dozen executive orders pertaining to DACA, Judge Andrew Napolitano said Tuesday.
Hours before Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is being rescinded, Napolitano spoke about the issue on "Fox & Friends" and placed the blame on Obama, who signed orders in 2012 to implement the policy.
"Every president since Ronald Reagan, since 1986, has said hands off on these folks," Napolitano said regarding people who illegally came to the U.S. as children with their parents and who are allowed to stay under certain conditions.
"The only president that reduced that to writing in a series of 12 executive orders was Barack Obama. And when those 12 executive orders were challenged in court, the court invalidated them, saying this is for Congress to do."
Napolitano said if Obama had signed a policy "quietly and below the radar screen, like all of your predecessors have done, and as Donald Trump is doing today, there'd be nothing for us to invalidate."
Napolitano predicted that Congress will likely come up with a way to protect the roughly 800,000 people who have benefited from DACA and allow them to stay. The program will remain in place for another six months, which lawmakers can use to cobble together some legislation on the matter.
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