While many others spent their weekend commemorating the resurrection of a child migrant named Jesus, Donald Trump—egged on by a pack of anti-immigrant hardliners including white supremacist and White House aide Stephen Miller—has now spent days ranting about the border, immigration and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program he ended despite no court or judge ordering him to. Just like Jesus would tweet.
Early Monday morning, one tweet claimed that “DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon … No longer works.” More on this later. Another from Easter Sunday claimed that ”these big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!” One tweet from right before he attended Sunday Mass railed, “NO MORE DACA DEAL!” Like he was really trying to get one in the first place.
Here’s the thing: Trump is a liar, and Trump is clueless. Trump is clueless on just about any topic you could name, but particularly on the issue of DACA (someone ask him what DACA is an acronym for in the first place). Not only is he responsible for ending it last year and then torpedoing at least six—SIX!—bipartisan efforts to pass legislation that would permanently protect immigrant youth, but because it has been rescinded, no new applicants can sign up, contrary to his lies. Zip. Nada. None:
What is particularly startling about Trump's comments this weekend is that he suggests that people are coming to the US without authorization to take advantage of the DACA program. But, thanks to Trump, DACA officially ended on March 5. Even if it were still in place, to be eligible for DACA, applicants must have lived in the US since 2007, have arrived before age 16, and been younger than 31 in June 2012.
Due to a court order, only young immigrants who have already been in the program can renew their protections. Young immigrants already here who are just now becoming old enough to apply are shut out completely. Alleged “big flows of people” trying to come to the U.S. can’t apply, so unless they manage to find a time machine to go back to 2007, what Trump is screaming about won’t happen, because he ended the program, and his GOP-led Congress has failed to fix it. And don’t forget it.
Then there’s this nonsense about, “Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation.” But Trump’s administration boasted late last year about border crossings being at their lowest levels since 1971. “Some immigrants in shelters in Mexican border cities say they are now afraid to cross,” NPR reported, “because of tough talk coming from Washington and stepped-up arrests in the interior.” We don’t need the wall, but Trump sure does need it to rile up his racist base.
Greg Sargent also makes an important point that Trump also appears to be railing against granting persecuted persons asylum. So much for America as the shining city on a hill. “Trump's Easter tweets about immigration were nonsense,” wrote Raul Reyes. “That the President, who holds so much power over the lives of the Dreamers and other immigrants, seemingly lacks basic knowledge about immigration policy is as troubling as it is astonishing.”