Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced earlier this week that Obama's 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) executive order would not be renewed. A six-month moratorium was being given for Congress to draft and pass legislation to address the Dreamers - an estimated 800,000 illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. with their undocumented parents while they were still minors. With illegal immigration a major campaign issue in the 2016 presidential election, the decision has elicited volatile opinions from both sides. The Left has been overwhelmingly hysterical, with hyperbolic accusations of racism, ethnic cleansing, and comparisons to Hitler and terrorists being among the milder comments leveled by Liberal pundits and politicians.
The Right has been vociferous as well, regarding Trump's delay period to end DACA as too accommodating.
DACA: a get out of jail free pass?
DACA qualifications stipulate that Dreamer applicants must have been under age 16 when entering into the US and cannot be older than 31. Oversight was to be conducted by the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). However, the same lax Obama administration ICE enforcement policies that necessitated Kate's Law apparently pervaded USIC oversight of DACA. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released evidence last year that noted a disturbing level of criminal activity among applicants, such as Social Security fraud, ID theft, perjury, forgery, etc.
These offences were essentially being amnestied when these Dreamers were approved under DACA to obtain valid and genuine Social Security numbers, green cards, driver's licenses and other legal documentation.
CIS pointed out that revocation of DACA status only was triggered by a felony conviction or a conviction on 3 or more misdemeanors.
This means that many sexual predators, gang bangers, drug dealers, tax evaders, and other Dreamers who have managed to evade conviction, even if arrested and tried in court, would still be protected from deportation under DACA. The report also cites that USCIS workers encouraged deliberate application fraud by instructing applicants to omit false ID information they may have been using.
Employers who knowingly hired Dreamers in spite of their illegal status were also given a hold harmless pass.
In addition, Judicial Watch obtained USCIS documentation through the Freedom of Information Act that showed that USCIS essentially discarded background checks for Dreamer applicants as early as 2012. The limited checks that were enacted included protocols described as "lean and light," managerial pressure not to turn away applicants who lacked ID, and even acquisition of expensive biometric ID scanner equipment to process as many Dreamer applicants as they could, regardless of qualifications, to get them covered under DACA.
A recent interview with Matt O'Brien, an attorney, and former USCIS investigator disclosed that as many as 400,000 of the current DACA protected Dreamers may have approved under pretenses and may well have committed ID fraud in order to obtain their qualified status.
Practically zero checks to verify age were part of the qualification protocols, and the pressure from the Obama Administration to expedite as many applications as possible under limited due diligence screening led to rampant ID fraud. O'Brien cited multiple instances of Dreamers with adult children as proof since that would have been impossible for the ages as listed on their applications.
CIS has also noted that 5,000 people in detention awaiting deportation who were considered public safety risks even under the extraordinarily lax rules of the Obama Administration were nevertheless granted amnesty under DACA and released. With 97% acceptance rate and only 3% rejections, it is obvious that the safety of US citizens was given a lower priority than the protection of illegal immigrants under DACA during the Obama Administration.
These have been privileges unavailable to other illegal immigrants, let alone being unquestionably hazardous and unfair to both native born and legally naturalized citizens.
Inconvenient Truths?
While a sizable number of Dreamers are most likely innocent of intentional lawbreaking and would make for upstanding US citizens, their presence here, nonetheless, is a violation of the law. No other nation has been more lenient than the US on this front. Putting the pressure on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation to legal citizenship is simply making the legislative branch do its job to codify the law going forward. Some solutions to consider for the equation can include mandatory military or government service for 2-3 years and a passing grade in a civics and citizenship test, similar to those taken by naturalized citizens.
DACA, by definition, is a deferred act, which Obama knew would resurface in the future and cause controversy for his successor. Conversely, a blanket amnesty and automatic citizenship, as many on the Left advocate, is politically and morally untenable. It would be a slap in the face to the millions who waited on line for years to legally go through the long and costly immigration and naturalization process.
As many on the Left bewail the executive orders signed by President Trump which overturn those of Obama, they overlook the principles of basic civics and the governmental separation of powers, which Obama egregiously breached with his "phone and pen" imperial edicts. Trump's refusal to renew DACA is his presidential prerogative; making Congress go to work on crafting comprehensive legislation to address the Dreamer issue is Constitutional lawmaking in action, a refreshing return to fundamental civics after the last eight years.
Additionally, claims being made on behalf of the Dreamers' merits have been exaggerated. They are predominantly legal adults, not children, as described by many open borders activists. A Harvard University study revealed that 72% of them come from homes on government assistance and that 20% have graduated from a four year college. (Other studies place the college grad rate at 5-7%.) Despite their indisputably illegal status, these Dreamers compete with legal US citizens for numerous highly sought after jobs, not "work that Americans won't do." There is also clear evidence that maintaining DACA encourages illegal immigration, even in the wake of reduced numbers since President Trump took office.
Mass deportation of Dreamers is not an option, but neither is mass amnesty. President Trump has ended DACA and set the clock ticking for Congress to now do its part with the issue front and center and prevalent in the news. The debate will continue, but the public needs to be cognizant of both sides of the issue and the objective facts in order for reason to balance emotion and arrive at a fair solution.
