President Trump is expected to announce his decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program this week.
This is an immigration policy started by the Obama administration in 2012 that allows immigrants who entered the United States illegally as minors to avoid deportation for two years and be allowed to apply for work permits. After two years, they can apply for renewal.
About 800,000 immigrants are currently protected under the program.
Trump campaigned on taking a hard line against immigration, and he has stepped up efforts, no matter how inhumane, to get more illegal immigrants out of the country.
Among the president’s options are discontinuing the program altogether, a move that will appeal to the racist segment of his base (and we know how he loves to play to that faction).
The idea of doing away with the program has its share of fans. A group of Republican state officials – let by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – is threatening to sue if Trump doesn’t get rid of it.
Some conservatives have accused DACA of being an inappropriate use of executive power. That’s a question for the judiciary, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said he considers it unconstitutional and cannot defend it in court,
Those whispering in Trump’s ear include weasel-like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is vice chair of the president’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
Kobach, who along with former Governor Sam Brownback illustrate the Sunflower State’s tendency to lean toward the mental midget population when choosing its leaders, claims DACA allows “a lot of gang-bangers” to be released after they get arrested.
"The DACA (population) is a cross section of the illegal alien population," Kobach said. "There are criminals, there are scholars. But it’s not an especially higher achieving cross-section of the illegal alien population."
Speaking of not especially higher achieving, idiotic U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa has gone so far as to claim the DACA program is a haven for criminals and that DACA recipients should be deported.
And while folks like Kobach and King have no trouble debasing an entire group of people – especially a group that isn’t likely to vote for them – the real danger comes if we let these perverted racist views affect the program and the hundreds of thousands who have benefited from it.
As The New York Times reported, DACA has changed the lives of many beneficiaries, enabling them to qualify for financial aid for college, secure better jobs and open bank accounts. These milestones on the road to self-sufficiency would be jeopardized if DACA is wiped out
Most crucially, if DACA ends, those who benefit from the program would again be eligible for deportation. And they would not be hard to find — the Department of Homeland Security has DACA and tax documents showing their addresses, which may also be the addresses of their undocumented parents.
They registered with the government in good faith, and now they could be the victims of a heinous shell game played by the most corrupt, racist and incompetent administration in our nation’s history.
A lot of the time things come down to what you stand for. This is one of them.
As someone whose grandparents immigrated to this country seeking a better life, and whose father came here as a young boy, what the opponents of the DACA program want to do is so repugnant that it will leave a stain on our country for a long time.
These individuals came to this country as children. They had no control over the situation. One day their mother or father said let’s go, we’re moving.
For those who have followed our laws, got an education, and attempted to be good and productive citizens, to throw them out now is simply against everything this country – a country that was built by immigrants – stands for.
If we allow this baseless hate of minorities and immigrants to be given any level of legitimization, then shame on those of us who know better.
The best solution would be for Congress to pass bipartisan legislation protecting the DACA participants. It would fall within the purview of government and would take this out of the hands of the boobish Trump and the ignorant segment of his base, bottom-feeders like Kobach and King, and those states where hatred for immigrants, at least among their leaders, still festers.
Their positions don’t represent our nation as a whole, and now’s our chance to prove it.
A bill introduced by GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois would grant citizenship to over 1 million illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before turning 18. The policy also requires that an applicant have a clean criminal record, be enrolled in higher education or the military, or have a job.
This or a similar measure appears to be the only thing keeping us from continuing to backslide into the cesspool of hate that’s been growing in this country for years, exponentially so since Trump’s campaign and election.
Any attempt to remove this group of people from our country should be met by protest the likes of which we’ve never seen. It’s that important.
As was said earlier: This comes down to what we stand for. It’s time to put up or shut up.
This is not who we are. But if it happens, then it becomes who we are.
And that stinks.
You can read all my posts at Musings of a Nobody
Please share and subscribe by email if you like it.