Fake News: Trump Did NOT Reveal Plan To Fix DACA, Liberals NOT Losing Their Minds

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

You may have read President Trump revealed a plan to fix DACA that makes "liberals lose their minds". This is not true. According to several viral articles about it the plan protects certain illegal aliens that were brought into the country by their parents as children from deportation and grants them work permits if they meet certain criteria:

  • You were under 31 years old as of June 15, 2012;
  • You first came to the United States before your 16th birthday;
  • You have lived continuously in the United States from June 15, 2007 until the present;
  • You were physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012 and at the time you apply;
  • You came to the United States without documents before June 15, 2012, or your lawful status expired as of June 15, 2012;
  • You are currently studying, or you graduated from high school or earned a certificate of completion of high school or GED, or have been honorably discharged from the Coast Guard or military (technical and trade school completion also qualifies); and
  • You have NOT been convicted of a felony, certain significant misdemeanors (including a single DUI), or three or more misdemeanors of any kind.

daca.jpg

These are not the conditions of any Trump plan. These are the guidelines listed in the existing DACA policy, which you can check here. The article actually originated on a satire website named The Potatriot Post that tried to pass off the guidelines and protections in the current DACA policy as if they were part of a new Trump immigration plan in the hope of getting gullible conservatives to agree with it. The story ends like this:

All in all, this sounds like a great deal the Democrat Party should take -- but since it was Trump's idea, they won't support it at all.

DACA, or "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals", is a U.S. immigration policy adopted first by the Obama administration to grant certain individuals who entered the United States illegally as minors a deferment from deportation and eligibility for a work permit. The current Trump administration has sought to put an end to the policy.

The original satirical article was titled "BREAKING: Trump Reveals Plan To Fix DACA, It's So Genius Liberals Are Losing Their Minds" and was published here (archived version) and it was quickly stolen (archive) by fake news website USA Mirror News.

The site Potatriot Post comes with a clear satire disclaimer at the bottom of each article:

sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.

The owner and main writer of the site is self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He runs several other websites such as ladiesofliberty.net, shareotonin.com and dailyworldupdate.com. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". He has at least one accomplice who writes under the pen names "Freedom", "Captain Jellypants", "Butch Mannington" or "Captain Buck Atlantis".

Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up and he keeps knocking them down.

If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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