President Trump announced Tuesday that his administration would end an Obama-era program that allowed young undocumented immigrants to live in the country without fear of deportation, calling the program unconstitutional and challenging Congress to address the issue.

Trump’s decision, coming after weeks of intensive deliberations with aides, sparked fears among advocates that nearly 800,000 immigrants who have lived illegally in the United States since they were children would be subject to removal once their government-issued work permits expire under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

The president and his top advisers said they had no choice but to end DACA, framing the program as an abuse of executive power from former president Barack Obama that was unlikely to survive a legal challenge. They called on lawmakers to determine the ultimate fate of the DACA recipients, known as “dreamers,” and emphasized that no work permits would be revoked for at least six months to give Congress time to act.

In a sign of the political sensitivities involved, Trump did not make public remarks, deferring to Attorney General Jeff Session to unveil the decision at the Justice Department.

In a written statement, Trump asserted that Obama made “an end-run around Congress” that violated “the core tenets that sustain our Republic.” He added that there can be “no path to principled immigration reform if the executive branch is able to rewrite or nullify federal laws at will.”

A wide array of politicians, civic leaders and business executives spoke out against Trump’s move, including the Mexican government, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the Catholic Charities of New York. Some Democrats, including New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, vowed to pursue legal action to protect the dreamers.

In a lengthy post on his Facebook page, Obama called Trump’s move “cruel” and said it represented a “political decision” to a “moral question.”

Ultimately, Obama wrote, “this is about basic decency. This is about whether we are a people who kick hopeful young strivers out of America, or whether we treat them the way we’d want our own kids to be treated. It’s about who we are as a people — and who we want to be.”

Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security said the agency would no longer accept new applications for DACA other than those submitted before Tuesday. Immigrants enrolled in the program will be permitted to continue until their two-year work permits expire. And those whose permits expire through March 5, 2018, are allowed to seek renewals provided they do so by Oct. 5, officials said.

If Congress fails to act, dreamers would not be high priorities for deportation, the DHS officials said, but they would be issued notices to appear at immigration court if they are encountered by federal immigration officers. There are no plans for DHS to use personal information, including home addresses, of dreamers who registered for work permits to aid in deportation operations unless there is an immediate concern over national security, officials said.

“Our enforcement priorities remain unchanged,” Trump said in his statement. “We are focused on criminals, security threats, recent border-crossers, visa overstays, and repeat violators. I have advised the Department of Homeland Security that DACA recipients are not enforcement priorities unless they are criminals, are involved in criminal activity, or are members of a gang.”

Congressional leaders from both parties said the time was right to pursue a legislative solution to the dreamers, but they did not lay out a clear path on an issue that has vexed lawmakers since President Ronald Reagan signed the last major comprehensive immigration bill in 1986. The Dream Act, which would have offered a path to citizenship to dreamers, failed narrowly in the Senate in 2010 after passing in the House.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who last week had urged Trump not to end the program until Congress acted, called DACA a “clear abuse of executive authority” by Obama.

“It is my hope that the House and Senate, with the president’s leadership, will be able to find consensus on a permanent legislative solution that includes ensuring that those who have done nothing wrong can still contribute as a valued part of this great country,” Ryan said.

Trump had equivocated for months as pressure mounted among immigration hawks to fulfill a campaign promise to end DACA. Reflecting his personal ambivalence, he had vowed to show “great heart” in his decision and declared that dreamers could “rest easy.”

But a threat from Texas and several other states to sue the administration if it did not end DACA by Tuesday forced Trump to make a decision. Several senior aides, including Sessions, who declared the Justice Department would be unable to defend the program in court, lobbied the president to end DACA. Others, including Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the former DHS secretary, cautioned that terminating the program would cause chaos for young immigrants who enjoy broad popular support.

The Obama administration had defended the creation of the 2012 program by citing the precedent of “prosecutorial discretion” in which law enforcement agencies with limited resources set priorities to fulfill their obligations. With more than 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, the government had the ability to deport only a small fraction each year, Obama aides said at the time.

Sessions wrote a memo Monday concluding that DACA is unconstitutional, prompting acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke to issuing orders Tuesday to phase out the program, officials said. In his remarks, Sessions said Obama “sought to achieve specifically what the legislative branch refused to do” and added that “the Department of Justice cannot defend this overreach.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded Trump’s decision, saying DACA “went far beyond the executive branch’s legitimate authority.” Paxton said that as a result of Trump’s decision, the states would lift their threat of legal action.

DACA supporters expressed skepticism that an administration that has taken a hard line on immigration would exercise restraint with dreamers once the work permits begin to expire.

More than 300 immigration activists protested front of the White House, calling Trump a “liar” and a “monster,” and more than two dozen demonstrators were reportedly arrested outside Trump Tower in New York. Javier Palomarez, president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, resigned from Trump’s presidential diversity committee over the “disgraceful action.”
In a tweet, former vice president Joe Biden wrote: “Brought by parents, these children had no choice in coming here. Now they’ll be sent to countries they’ve never known. Cruel. Not America.”

And in a sign that both sides could seek to use the dreamers to rally their political bases, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sent out a fundraising pitch to Democratic supporters, calling the decision “quite possibly the cruelest thing President Trump has ever done.”

That prompted White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to counter that Pelosi’s fundraising was the “most heartless” act of the day.

The fight over the dreamers now shifts to Congress, where several new proposals have been put forward. Those include the Bridge Act, a bipartisan bill with 25 co-sponsors that would extend DACA protections for three years to give Congress time to enact permanent legislation.

But the White House and conservative Republicans are likely to demand additional provisions to boost border security, such as funding for Trump’s proposed border wall or new measures to restrict legal immigration. In his statement, Trump expressed support for the Raise Act, a proposal from conservative Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) to slash legal immigration levels by half over a decade.

“We will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion — but through the lawful Democratic process,” Trump said, “while at the same time ensuring that any immigration reform we adopt provides enduring benefits for the American citizens we were elected to serve.”

The president was reportedly torn over the decision, according to White House officials, split between his desire to appear tough on illegal immigration and his personal feelings toward the dreamers, most of whom have lived in the United States most of their lives.

Another monster storm is hurtling closer to the United States, this time threatening Florida, where officials announced mandatory evacuations Tuesday in advance of what forecasters say could be the most powerful hurricane to strike the Atlantic coast in more than a decade.

Even as millions across Texas picked up the pieces after Hurricane Harvey, which battered that region with record-setting rain last week and was blamed for at least 60 deaths, Hurricane Irma gathered strength in the ocean, registering as a Category 5 with winds in excess of 180 miles per hour.

Concern centered particularly on the Florida Keys, a chain of islands at the southern tip of the state that is a tourist hot spot and home to more than 80,000 residents. It is in the direct path of the storm as currently forecast, leading local officials there to announce that the area would be under mandatory evacuation orders beginning Wednesday.

Fear also spread north into Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county with 2.7 million residents. Though the storm’s exact trajectory was still unknown, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez urged residents to stock up on food and water and warned that evacuation orders could follow in some areas. The county already planned to start evacuating those with special needs on Wednesday.

“This hurricane is far too powerful, poses far too great a threat, for us to delay actions any further,” Gimenez said at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon. “I would rather inconvenience our residents on this occasion than suffer any unnecessary loss of life if in fact we are hit by Hurricane Irma. It is still too early to know if we will take a direct hit.”

[Hurricane Irma is getting stronger and could impact the U.S., forecasters warn]

Forecasters on Tuesday called Irma one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic. The National Hurricane Center warned of “large and destructive waves” along the coasts of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas, while also saying that flooding could drench parts of Puerto Rico and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico’s governor on Tuesday asked President Trump to declare a state of emergency ahead of the storm’s arrival.

“Hurricane Irma’s magnitude compares to no other weather system in the recorded history of Puerto Rico. … We have expended substantial resources in preparation for this disaster and without the assistance of the federal government, the local communities will be unable to recover effectively,” Ricardo Rosselló Nevares wrote in the letter.

Computer models show the storm approaching the Florida Keys by the weekend and then turning sharply northward. Its path beyond that is more uncertain, with models showing that it could then track up either the west coast of Florida or the East Coast of the United States, or climb up the center of the peninsula. The storm could also churn into the Gulf of Mexico. But the hurricane’s size suggests that its effects could be felt far from its center — perhaps as far as 200 miles out — forecasters say.

The storm promised to test once again the Trump administration’s ability to respond to a major natural disaster, just days after Hurricane Harvey pummeled Texas, leaving record damage in its wake. William “Brock” Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that incident management assistance personnel already are on the ground in vulnerable areas.

“Just like in Texas, the response to Irma is going to take all levels of government and the whole community,” Long said in a statement. “This has the potential to be a catastrophic storm.”

That potential appeared to be sinking in particularly in the Florida Keys, where gas stations reported low fuel stocks and grocery stores ran out of bottled water. Residents and business owners boarded up windows and hauled boats out of the water. Tourists and residents had already begun crowding up the single highway that snakes through the 120-mile island chain and into the Florida mainland.

Some planned to ride out the storm, despite the dire warnings. Monroe County commissioner Sylvia Murphy, who has lived on the Florida Keys since 1954, said she and a few guests would hunker down in her home, which sits about 12 feet above sea level atop the ridge that runs along the islands. Her house has a new metal roof, she said, and is surrounded by trees, which help block the wind gusts.

“The water won’t get me,” she said by phone Tuesday.

Others in the state, meanwhile, planned to play it safe.

School districts in the large counties of southern Florida all announced they were canceling classes later this week, including Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, three of the nation’s largest with a combined enrollment of more than 800,000 students. The NFL said the Miami Dolphins season opener scheduled for Sunday afternoon would not be played in South Florida as planned, and would move either to a neutral location the same day or would be rescheduled for later in the season.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who has declared a statewide emergency, wrote to Trump on Tuesday asking him to declare a pre-landfall emergency in Florida, warning that Irma could require large-scale evacuations. He has activated 100 members of the Florida National Guard and said he has directed all 7,000 members to report for duty on Friday.

[Eye of a monster: Terrifying images of Hurricane Irma, 2017’s strongest storm on Earth]

Scott ordered Florida transportation officials to suspend tolls across the state as of 5 p.m. Tuesday, which could help lessen congestion on the crowded arteries drivers will use to escape the storm’s potential path.

The uncertainty of Irma’s track and the geography of the Florida peninsula have combined to create an unusually broad, essentially statewide sense of emergency. Most of Florida’s population lives close to the coast, and Irma could potentially ride up either side or track further west into the Gulf of Mexico and endanger the state’s panhandle.

South Florida’s three big counties — Dade, Broward and Palm Beach — last year surpassed 6 million in population for the first time, and routes out of the area are impeded by the Everglades and vast swamps just inland of the inhabited regions. The main routes north are Interstate 95 and the Florida Turnpike. The main route west is Interstate 75 — the so-called “Alligator Alley” — but that takes South Florida’s residents to the imperiled southwest coast of the state. If the storm does track up the state’s spine, as Scott noted, that could make evacuations extremely complex.

The last major hurricane — registering as a Category 3 storm or stronger — to make landfall in Florida was Hurricane Wilma in October 2005. Wilma also was the last major hurricane to make landfall in the United States until Harvey struck Texas late last month.

While the hurricane center said Irma’s intensity could fluctuate, it is expected to remain a Category 4 or 5 storm during coming days. The hurricane center was blunt about Irma’s potential impact, calling the storm “extremely dangerous” and “potentially catastrophic.”

“Everyone should continue to monitor, check supplies, and be ready to implement action plan,” the National Weather Service in Miami posted Tuesday morning on Twitter.

5 AM: Irma has max sustained winds 150 mph. Everyone should continue to monitor, check supplies, and be ready to implement action plan #FLwx pic.twitter.com/P9JlSm7DIU

— NWS Miami (@NWSMiami) September 5, 2017

The University of Miami said Tuesday it was canceling classes beginning on Wednesday and through the end of the week at two of its campuses, including its main property in Coral Gables, south of downtown Miami.

Miami city officials urged residents who live in buildings next to construction cranes to evacuate in advance of the hurricane, saying that the cranes are designed to withstand winds up to 145 miles per hour, not a Category 5 storm. “The arm’s counterbalance is very heavy and poses a potential danger if the crane collapses,” the city said in a statement, noting that the danger is greatest for people living in high-rises.

The warnings in Florida arrive not long after the state marked the 25th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew’s devastating landfall there, and as residents — like many others nationwide — have spent recent days glued to news reports documenting Harvey’s mammoth impact in Texas.

If Irma does make landfall as a Category 4 storm or stronger so close after Harvey’s impact on the Gulf Coast, it will be the first time on record that two storms of that strength hit the United States during the same hurricane season.

Joel Achenbach, Moriah Balingit, Angela Fritz and Jason Samenow contributed to this story, which has been updated since it was first published at 8:47 a.m.

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