U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions leaves after a press conference in Washington D.C., the United States, on Sept. 5, 2017. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has been rescinded. The move potentially puts 800,000 illegal immigrants in danger of deportation. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration protection program, further dividing a nation that is already deeply divided. The program allowed young undocumented immigrants, or "Dreamers," to live in the country without fear of deportation. Now, hundreds of thousands of young adults brought to the U.S. illegally as children could soon face deportation.

The Trump Administration said no current beneficiaries of the program would be affected before March 5. But if Congress fails to act, immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children could face deportation as early as March 6. And to add to their worries, a document obtained by U.S. television network ABC News urges recipients to "prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States."

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who attended the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, "cheered" the administration's decision to kill the program, arguing that the aim of the Obama-era policy is to turn children brought illegally to the U.S. into "anchor babies," so that they and their extended families can then continue "the replacement of white people in the country."

But the decision to scrap the program has mostly been met with anger and disbelief that America would turn its back on immigrants. In a lengthy post on his Facebook page, former U.S. President Barack Obama bashed Trump's decision, calling the move "wrong" and "cruel." "The action taken today isn't required legally," Obama wrote. "It's a political decision, and a moral question." U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for president in 2016, called Trump's decision "the ugliest and most cruel decision ever made by a president of the U.S. in the modern history of this country."

People attend a rally protesting against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in front of the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Sept. 5, 2017. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has been rescinded. The move potentially puts 800,000 illegal immigrants in danger of deportation. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

The future of Dreamers is perhaps most uncertain in the U.S. state of California. "To punish them for seeking a better life is unconscionably cruel," San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement. California, which borders Mexico, is one of America's most diverse states, and home to an estimated one-third of the 800,000 participants in the program. Stanford University, which is located in California, said in a statement that it "vigorously and adamantly opposes the shameful decision." The Mexican foreign ministry also issued a statement, saying the Mexican government "deeply regrets" Trump's decision.

Nationwide protests have broken out in the wake of the decision. A movement called Refuse Fascism, which demands an end to the "Trump/Pence Regime," took to the streets chanting that Dreamers should stay and Trump should go. In New York, demonstrators filled the street in front of Trump Tower to rally, shouting, "We are human beings, our dreams are all equal, protect dignity and all of our people!" More protests are likely coming. Filmmaker Michael Moore, who has been a fierce critic of the president, wrote on Twitter: "To the streets! Find out where the DACA protest is where u live and SHOW UP! If we are ever to be a decent country, this is your moment." The tweet was shared more than 4,200 thousand times as of press time.

Trump's decision to kill the program, while controversial, should not come as a big surprise. After all, his stance on immigration issues has long been known. When Trump announced he was running for president, he blamed Mexican immigrants for taking U.S. Jobs and for many of America's problems, and has called for building a "great, great wall" on the U.S.-Mexico border to keep Mexicans out of the country.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions officially announced the end of the "Dreamers" immigration program on Tuesday, ending the dreams of some 800,000 young adults brought to the U.S. illegally as children. In his remarks, Sessions said the program "denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens."

Related: Trump's plan to end young immigrants protection program reignites hot debate