On Monday, the Supreme Court denied a request from the Trump administration to expedite a decision on DACA. This keeps the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program on life support for a few more months, and its 690,000 recipients in limbo on whether they will get to stay in the country. Congress still hasn’t been able to pass a vote either way.

On the latest episode of Today, Explained, Vox’s Dara Lind and Matthew Yglesias make clear why Congress is in such a stalemate: President Donald Trump has moved the conversation into unfamiliar territory, from illegal immigration to legal immigration.

Lind elaborates:

“It’s not clear that anyone in the White House actually thought that they were going to be able to get cuts to legal immigration. But, if they did think that was possible, it makes sense that they would want to tie it to something that not only Democrats wanted — which was a path to citizenship for DREAMers — but that was actually urgent. But by shifting the debate to legal immigration, Trump is making it much harder for Congress to pass a solution to DACA, which is the thing they’re ostensibly supposed to be working on. I am confident saying that Donald Trump does not understand what is happening with the DACA program.”

For the full episode, listen below or subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts.

Today, Explained is also available on Stitcher, Google Play, and other major podcasting platforms. You can follow Sean on Twitter at @Rameswaram, Dara at @DLind, and Matt at @MattYglesias.

Related reading:

What the March 5th “deadline” on DACA actually means for immigrants

The Supreme Court may have just kept DACA on life support for a few more months

Jeff Sessions’s unqualified praise for a 1924 immigration law

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