Listen: John Kelly Says Some Dreamers ‘Too Lazy to Get Off Their Asses’ to Sign Up for DACA

Kelly Known to Be Anti-Immigrant

President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly says some undocumented immigrants were “too afraid” or “too lazy to get off their asses” to sign up for DACA. 

Kelly also said, “I doubt very much” President Trump will extend the self-imposed March 5 deadline he placed on Congress to fix DACA, the Obama-era program that offers protections from deportation and the ability to work and pay taxes legally. Recipients have to pay a $495 fee when applying and when renewing.

“There are 690,000 official DACA registrants and the president sent over what amounts to be two and a half times that number, to 1.8 million,” Kelly told reporters Tuesday afternoon, as The Washington Post reports. “The difference between [690,000] and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses, but they didn’t sign up.”

Kelly said he couldn’t believe that lawmakers would vote against Trump’s immigration plan given how “generous” it is.

“If before the champions of DACA were members on one side of the aisle, I would say right now the champion of all people who are DACA is Donald Trump — but you would never write that.”

New York Times opinion columnist Charles M. Blow has called Kelly the “Deacon of Deportation.”

Here’s how The Nation last July reported on Kelly being moved from Homeland Security chief to Trump Chief of Staff: “Kelly did such an efficient job implementing Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda that he’s getting promoted.”

Image by DHS via Flickr