so, what's the rationalist read on this?

as should be obvious to most people by now, if it wasn't always, trump's attacks on migrants were always intended to generate votes - throwing people who grew up in the united states out of the country is literally an act of self-harm, by definition. but, the point from trump's perspective is that it has to be a popular decision.

trump is hardly an everyman, but he had some advisors that helped him take advantage of a certain streak of xenophobia with a particularly powerful caveat - it came with mass denial from more moderate voters.

so, you have voter a and voter b. voter a is voting for trump because he's a racist and doesn't give a fuck about anything else (including self-interest), whereas voter b is voting for trump because he has the same class interests (or at least imagines that he does) and in spite of his racial policies, which may leave him a little uneasy.

trump's decision is going to be based on what he thinks is more popular - on what will give him better ratings. and, there are some encouraging signs that he's realizing that cancelling daca would be broadly unpopular with more populous b type voters, while remaining violently popular with a type ones.

i'd like to think trump will take the next six months to do some polling, but you can't be sure with this guy. regardless, that's what he's doing - he's waiting the situation out, and will test the waters early next year to see if the deportation is more popular, all of a sudden.

i wouldn't expect anything to come out of this.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/04/politics/daca-congress-trump-decision/index.html