The Patriot Post® · DACA Rescinded

Big announcement from Donald Trump on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The combination of campaign promises and assurances to Dreamers that they needn’t worry about getting rounded up and deported made his decision appropriate and totally predictable.

We have a Supreme Court because at times the Constitution and federal law need interpretation. But the setting of immigration policy is not among those times. Authority to set the law on immigration matters is reserved solely and explicitly for Congress, which is why Barack Obama’s executive order was so blatantly unconstitutional. Even a constitutional scholar with the stature of a former president said as much for years. So all Trump did on this point by rescinding DACA was recognize the executive branch overreach and uphold the rule of constitutional law.

While the Trump executive order does put Dreamers back in limbo status, the implementation of the order is delayed for six months to give the appropriate body the time to consider the issue correctly. No one is in immediate jeopardy, and while no new applications are being accepted, provisions have been made to deal with those in the middle of the process. The howls from Democrats and the media are long on decibel level and hyperbole, using words like shameful, politically cowardly, cruel, and heartless — all tinged with claims of racism and even further support of the post-Charlottesville white supremacist leanings of the Trump administration. All tugging at the emotional heartstrings with no comment on the legality of the action and neglecting to note in their utter hypocrisy that the ones screaming the loudest were the very ones who did not exercise their constitutional authority to solve the problem in the first place.

And yet what exactly does the Trump executive order say about what happens when DACA expires in six months? That’s right — NOTHING! All it does is return the situation to that beautifully sounding diplomatic/legal term — the status quo ante, otherwise known as the way things were before Obama’s unconstitutional executive order. And the way things were handled spanned multiple administrations, both Democrat and Republican, and essentially made perfect use of that legitimate executive branch option known as prosecutorial discretion in going after Dreamers. Essentially they have been treated the way the state cops deal with drivers going 67 in a 65 m.p.h. zone, and Trump also said that Dreamers would likely remain that far down on the attention-getting totem pole even if DACA simply disappeared.

The truth is that it’s hard not to have some sympathy for those brought into the country illegally through no fault of their own and who have abided by our laws for decades. To be sure, cancel the program going forward. But even a strong law-and-order guy like myself would like to see some compromises made to accommodate those already here — maybe a path to legal status with no advantages in pursuing citizenship over those going through the proper motions. Rounding them up and throwing them out seems like a bridge too far. Ideally, that would be part of an overhaul to our broken immigration system, which would include strict border control, zero tolerance for illegal entry, deportation of illegal alien criminals, ID cards, employer prosecutions for hiring, and modernization of the criteria for immigrants and the immigration process. Once that were in place and made permanent, then there could be arrangements made to deal with the several million who are already here illegally, with perhaps the same notification and path to legal work status as Dreamers.

It might sound strange coming from a law-and-order guy, but the fact is that the country essentially invited illegals to enter the country and stay because we made it easy to come here with lax border control and then looked the other way for too long while they were here searching for cheap labor. In some ways you might call it an implied contract that should be addressed fairly for those here, while stopping cold the flow of those who might come illegally in the future.

And speaking of which, don’t be surprised if some clever lawyer makes the same argument about DACA, which requires those who want to be covered to come forward with information about their status that was probably not known by the feds prior. They were promised a path to legal status or even citizenship in return, so now using that info to identify them for potential deportation might be crafted as a contract violation. It would take some creative lawyering since the original order was not constitutional, but that never stopped the Ninth Circuit from bouncing Trump’s travel ban even though the Constitution clearly gave him the absolute authority to do it.

This was exactly the right thing for Trump to do, including putting things back where they constitutionally belong — in Congress, which hopefully will take the bait, can the rhetoric, and work with Trump to find solutions for immigration issues beyond just Dreamers. The system truly is broken and it’s been far too long.