Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich has blasted President Trump's decision to begin dismantling the program protecting young immigrants brought into the country illegally. Kasich told CBS "putting kids, young people who are contributors in jeopardy" isn't the American way. Trump plans to reject all new applications to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, and formally rescind the program. Central Ohio Republican Congressman Pat Tiberi supports the move. Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown vowed to fight to protect the program. Kasich is the grandson of Czech and Croatian immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are vowing to fight to stay in the U.S. and advocates are launching campaigns including fundraisers and registration drives in the wake of President Trump's decision to dismantle the program that protects more than 800 thousand young people from deportation. 44 hundred of those people live in Ohio, including Jose Cabrera with the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center in Cincinnati.
Cabrera says the left-leaning Center for American Progress estimates Ohio would lose 250 billion dollars in Gross Domestic Product if the state's current DACA workers are deported.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan is one of the Republicans who urged the president to keep the program in place. Opponents of the program call DACA an unconstitutional abuse of executive power.