--- title: John Kelly Says People Who Did Not Sign Up For DACA Are Lazy description: John Kelly suggested that people who are eligible for DACA but don't sign up for the program refrain in part out of laziness. canonical: https://time.com/5136113/john-kelly-daca/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-06T20:23:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T19:10:30.101Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Suggested People Don't Sign Up for DACA Out of Laziness og:description: He was defending the White House's immigration plan og:url: https://time.com/5136113/john-kelly-daca/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6958b19d7cce9bcd/6988e2c24ee26258fd30f7af/john-kelly-donald-trump-fallen-soldiers-criticism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5213 og:image:height: 2932 og:image:alt: John Kelly Discusses Operational Implementation Of Trump Immigration Ban og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Suggested People Don't Sign Up for DACA Out of Laziness twitter:description: He was defending the White House's immigration plan twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6958b19d7cce9bcd/6988e2c24ee26258fd30f7af/john-kelly-donald-trump-fallen-soldiers-criticism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Suggested People Don't Sign Up for DACA Out of Laziness > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Feb 6, 2018 8:23 PM UTC  White House Chief of Staff John Kelly answers questions during a press conference on Jan. 31, 2017 in Washington, D.C. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly answers questions during a press conference on Jan. 31, 2017 in Washington, D.C.Drew Angerer—Getty Images  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Feb 6, 2018 8:23 PM UTC President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff suggested to reporters Tuesday that people who are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) but don’t sign up for it refrain in part out of laziness. When describing the key components of the White House’s immigration framework, Gen. John Kelly noted that the plan includes a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people, including DACA recipients as well as people eligible for DACA but who never signed up. “The difference between \[these numbers\] were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up; others would say are too lazy to get off their asses but they didn’t sign up,” Kelly told reporters, [according to audio](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/kelly-dreamers-who-didnt-sign-up-for-daca-were-too-afraid-or-too-lazy/2018/02/06/01172cf6-0b66-11e8-998c-96deb18cca19%5Fvideo.html?utm%5Fterm=.1b7da99abd5c) posted by The Washington _Post_. Former President Barack Obama implemented DACA by executive order in 2012\. The program allows undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors with their parents to apply for a work permit, shielding them from deportation. Approximately 800,000 people have benefitted from the program, [according to](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/All%20Form%20Types/DACA/daca%5Fperformancedata%5Ffy2017%5Fqtr2.pdf) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Trump administration announced in September that it was phasing out DACA, giving Congress a six-month window to find a solution (the deadline is March 5.) Congress shut down the government last month after lawmakers were unable to agree on a fix. However, they eventually approved a short-term bill funding the government through Feb. 8 after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to work on an immigration deal. But that deadline is fast approaching, and such a deal does not seem imminent. Kelly also [told reporters Tuesday](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/kelly-i-doubt-very-much-that-trump-would-extend-daca-deadline/2018/02/06/d7c617de-0b6c-11e8-998c-96deb18cca19%5Fvideo.html?utm%5Fterm=.1b7da99abd5c) he does not expect Trump to extend the March 5 deadline if Congress has not reached an agreement. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5136113/john-kelly-daca/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5136113/john-kelly-daca/"},"headline":"Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Suggested People Don't Sign Up for DACA Out of Laziness","datePublished":"2018-02-06T20:23:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T19:10:30.101Z","description":"He was defending the White House's immigration plan","url":"https://time.com/5136113/john-kelly-daca/","keywords":["Immigration","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6958b19d7cce9bcd/6988e2c24ee26258fd30f7af/john-kelly-donald-trump-fallen-soldiers-criticism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6958b19d7cce9bcd/6988e2c24ee26258fd30f7af/john-kelly-donald-trump-fallen-soldiers-criticism.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"John Kelly Discusses Operational Implementation Of Trump Immigration Ban","caption":"John Kelly Discusses Operational Implementation Of Trump Immigration Ban","creditText":"Drew Angerer—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/immigration/","name":"Immigration"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5136113/john-kelly-daca/","name":"Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Suggested People Don't Sign Up for DACA Out of Laziness"}}]}] ```