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[Updated] Do We Need to Know Who the “Dreamers” Are?
Bill O’Reilly has a good piece on his website today about Obama-Trump and DACA. The key part of the article is as follows:
Who are these “dreamers” who have become darlings of the far left and their allies in the media? Progressives usually describe DACA recipients as model citizens, valedictorians, and gallant soldiers fighting in the United States Armed Forces. Democrats want them to have not just legal status, but a path to full citizenship and the eventual right to vote. To quote The Church Lady, “how convenient!”
Meanwhile, many conservatives contend that the DACA beneficiaries are simply illegal aliens by another name and have absolutely no right to be in the USA. Beyond that, they claim many of the “dreamers” are criminals or are taking low-wage jobs from American citizens.
There is some truth on both sides. Economist John Lott recently found that while “dreamers” make up about 2% of Arizona’s population, they are 8% of the state’s prisoners. He concluded that illegal immigrants are far more likely to commit crimes than citizens or legal immigrants. DACA recipients, whose average age is 25, also tend to be less educated and less skilled than native-born Americans.
Immigration expert Mickey Kaus, writing in the Washington Post, reported that most beneficiaries are not in school and are laboring at low-wage jobs. He added that many “dreamers” were not brought here as children, but crossed the border on their own, and that a grand total of about 900 have joined the military. By our rudimentary math, about one-tenth of one percent of DACA beneficiaries are in uniform.
On the other hand, the majority of those protected under DACA are certainly law-abiding people, many of them living in the only country they have ever known. Giving them the boot would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
As we consider the “deal” that should be made it is clear (to me) that:
- DACA protection is a key leverage in getting changes to immigration enforcement (wall funding, end to chain migration, end to the visa lottery, end to sanctuary cities/states).
- DACA should not mean automatic citizenship.
- DACA protection should be merit-based, not identity-based (i.e., clean living other than being an undocumented child).
- DACA parents can never be citizens (let them make the “final sacrifice” that they are so praised for by progressives).
I am looking forward to Monday and the promised Trump outline for DACA legislation. I hope it will be consistent with the four points above.
Update: Trump’s people have floated a plan ahead of Monday. Lot’s of interesting commentary. Trump’s ‘go-yuuuuge’ ‘in-their-face’ DACA deal by Monica Showalter in The American Thinker is floating the thesis that Trump has positioned Democrats to make it clear that DACA is a false issue and they don’t want to solve anything. Monica is somewhat confident that if the plan were to be adopted few bad actors amongst the “dreamers” would be left in this country.
Published in Immigration
Good post, Rodin. Not only is there contradictory data out there, but I’ve heard of much larger numbers for the total number of DACA illegals. Like 3 million? Also, I’m not clear on your meaning for the point listed just above. Does that mean they have to have a real job? And what other thought do you have on the meaning? I ask, because it might be hard to verify that a person meets that requirement.
I’ll go along with this, but we shouldn’t expect the Dems to give us everything in #1. As you suggest, DACA provides leverage. That leverage can be used to convince our less political fellow citizens that we have shared interests, and that the Dems are opposed to immigration enforcement. The country is already largely with us.
Items #2-4 in your list, along with some real measure of border enforcement, would put a DACA deal on solid ground, and set the stage for attainment of the rest of #1, E-verify, etc.
I think that DACA citizenship should be absolutely prohibited, except for honorable military service. That assumes that any are allowed to stay at all.
I want to point out a criticism of our own side with the statistic cited by O’Rielly, which appears to be the sort of poor comparison generally favored by the Left. “[W]hile “dreamers” make up about 2% of Arizona’s population, they are 8% of the state’s prisoners.”
This does not necessarily mean that the “dreamers” are more inclined to criminality than the general population. As I understand it, young men commit a very large proportion of serious crime, and the “dreamers” are of an age to be in this demographic. They should be compared to Arizona’s population of people in the same age category, not to the population generally.
The economist cited by O’Reilly, John Lott, actually did a much more detailed analysis (here). His conclusion was: “Even after adjusting for the fact that young people commit crime at higher rates, young undocumented immigrants commit crime at twice the rate of young U.S. citizens. These undocumented immigrants also tend to commit more serious crimes. If undocumented immigrants committed crime nationally as they do in Arizona, in 2016 they would have been responsible for over 1,000 more murders, 5,200 rapes, 8,900 robberies, 25,300 aggravated assaults, and 26,900 burglaries.”
Note that this final statistic is for all illegal immigrants, not necessarily just the “dreamers.”
To this point, I think there is an intentional conflation of “DACA recipients” and “dreamers.” The Dems want amnesty for all of the dreamers (millions?), not merely the subset of dreamers who have come forward to apply for and receive DACA protection (800k). For this reason, Dems will not accept any GOP DACA proposal, and the battle for Americans’ hearts and minds (and votes in November) will be engaged.
That’s why it is essential that the GOP put forward a reasonable DACA proposal (limited strictly to DACA recipients). It will be rejected, but the bigger battle lies ahead. Let’s not overplay our hand in the eyes of reasonable Americans.
Here’s some info on DACA registration (now enjoined) and links to the required forms.
My point is that USCIS has a pretty comprehensive profile of those already registered that could be reduced to statistics. It’s likely that this is a best case look since some who might arguably have registered, but had some “issues,” probably did not go through the process and would be unaccounted for.
If we’re going forward with this, it’s essential that strict and proper criteria be established for eligibility. This would normally be accomplished through agency regulations, but it would be preferable that standards be set out in any legislation passed.
To even serve in the military, they must have a high school diploma. The military is turning away Americans with only a GED. (Those folks can serve once they get some college hours.) Agree with your criteria.
Here is what I think a bad rhetorical argument coming from a conservative noted in yesterday’s WSJ Politics:
This is the only place in the article where the word amnesty is mentioned. Amnesty is not appropriate for children who were brought here. Their parents committed the crime. Throwing around the word amnesty in this context will not create any sympathy for conservatives. But I agree with the president that the parents ought not be offered citizenship. That would be an example of chain migration. (from the same article:)
I’ve seen this drill before . “Oh there’s only X number of people who will qualify for the amnesty, we have strict rules”.
Amnesty instituted. “oh if was X times Y. Who knew?”
Amnesty challenged in courts. “Oh we had to loosen the rules because some judge said so”….
We end up with multiple times the original amnesty population we were promised.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that this is where the case is strongest for DACA. You cannot fault children who did not come here of their own volition. That’s an argument that I think most Americans find compelling.
There are arguments for pushing back on this but it’s not because “dreamers” have a tendency towards criminality. You don’t have to answer every one of your opponent’s arguments, especially where he is strongest. I think you try to redirect towards your strongest arguments. Otherwise, you fall into a trap of attacking kids who 80% of Americans support. That’s a political trap as plain as day to see and avoid.
NPR has an interesting interview with Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador (R) this evening. His stance is that the dreamers should get green cards (visas) that they have to renew every 3 years, to stay in the U.S. Then they can get in line for citizenship, behind the people who have applied legally.
Great point.
Yes!
So many people do this the right way. We can be compassionate to these young people, but not at the expense of those who are adhering to the law.
What are the statistics on THOSE legal dreamers…with the proper plan for their dream?
Thanks for bringing this interview to the discussion. I think Rep. Labrador spoke well, but he got tripped up (I think) by the interviewer’s use of the term “dreamers.” I’d like to think that the congressman’s bill addresses DACA recipients, not dreamers.
To his credit, he rejected the interviewer’s characterization of a Trump “path to citizenship” proposal and restated it as “a way for them to become legal in 12 years.”
DACA ≠ dreamer
legal status ≠ citizenship
Can you clear this up:
A dreamer is a person who was brought here illegally as a child.
DACA applies to dreamers who have completed specific paperwork and application under DACA.
Am I right?
What is the kind name for the DACA dreamers. Clearly there should be a distinction.
… and have been granted DACA status.
As for what to call them? I don’t know. Progressives (the namers of all things cultural) have a vested interest in blurring the lines, so they haven’t bestowed an accurate name on the DACA recipients.
@susanquinn, as has been pointed out in the other comments there are “dreamers” which are presumably persons who were brought to US involuntarily, and there is a subset of dreamers who self-identified by applying for DACA protection. The legislation would presumably give permanent status to those who applied for DACA and were granted protection. But as everything with all things Obama, giving DACA protection status under the executive order should not necessarily be the basis for DACA authorized by Congress. There should be criteria for anyone seeking DACA status under the legislation (as opposed to the executive order) which might be met by all those granted prior protection, but maybe not if more information has been developed or the criteria are different. What shouldn’t happen is that someone only need to show that they were brought here illegally as a minor regardless of how they have behaved since arriving. They don’t necessarily have to be employed, but they certainly need to have avoided committing crimes beyond simply being here illegally.
I appreciate this discussion. I didn’t really know the difference between dreamers and DACA.
Is this correct? Absent DACA are they law abiding?
I understand nobody cares but me, but words matter.
The quote from O’Reilly was his reference to whether DACA recipients were law-abiding other than their illegal status.
I just noticed that Joe Manchin referred to them as “DACA children.” Also, credit to him for correcting Bozo Cuomo on CNN:
Cuomo [interjecting]: —talking about the dreamers.
Manchin: We’re talking about the DACA children right now.
Okay, never mind. Forget everything I’ve said in this thread.
It’s DREAM time.
Thanks for the clarification, that did not show in the quote.
From that linked article:
O. M. G.
DACA+
There’s got to be some increment, but the point of applying for DACA protection for those under the program would be when they would otherwise come under potential for deportation but don’t have complications like trouble with the law that would compel it, and they therefore would feel that it was safe to do at that time. Any remaining candidates might be laying low under the radar because they probably know they’ve done something that would complicate their situation if they applied. Maybe it’s a small increment. I’m not expecting it to be an order of magnitude larger.
Michael C. Bender in today’s WSJ says the number of undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children is 1.8 million.
I want to add Greg Gutfield’s comment here: “Aren’t we all dreamers?”
And the fact that people here are illegal and their nom de plume suggests that they are imaginative and wondrous, while all of us native born are other than that totally sums up the “South of the Border” exceptionalism that is the scourge of everyone else.
In Calif., that exceptionalism includes how if while working with hispanic co workers, they steal or abuse a client, you need to think twice about reporting the “incident” as doing so makes you a racist.
Bereket, I share your sympathies for the “dreamers,” but there may be many different situations. The strongest case is for someone who was brought here while very young and does not speak the language of his home country. If the “dreamer” speaks the language of their country of citizenship, I am much less sympathetic. I suspect that the overwhelming proportion of “dreamers” speak their country’s language, based on my own experience living in Tucson — 2nd generation Hispanic immigrants are usually bilingual, as they speak the language of their immigrant parents (whether those parents were legal or illegal). This was true in my own family, as well, a couple of generations ago — my grandparents, born here of Italian immigrant parents, spoke fluent Italian.
I’d prefer a more restrictive approach to the “dreamers,” with only the most sympathetic cases being allowed to stay, and even those denied citizenship ever (except for honorable military service).
There is a serious problem with your approach, which should be obvious. Are you going to let the “dreamers” stay but deport their parents? You are going to be accused of breaking up families, if you do this.
Maybe if we didn’t refer to them as “deportations” it would work better. How about “involuntary missionaries”? They came and lived in our society for awhile and saw how it could work, now they go home and try to help that society be more functional.
I don’t think that you’re correct about this. I think that the “dreamer” children are committing, or have committed, their own crime(s).
I am a lawyer, but have no expertise in this area. I did some quick Google research, and found the following, from the 2012 SCOTUS decision Arizona v. United States:
I found several summaries that cited or quoted the first item, but did not mention the latter.
This is significant because it appears to be true that unlawful presence is not a crime, but failure to register is a crime and failure to carry proof of status is a crime.
As I understand DACA, it allowed the “dreamers” to register and obtain a 2-year deferral of deportation action, plus work papers. If I’m following the numbers correctly, about 700,000 “dreamers” registered through DACA, and about 1.1 million eligible “dreamers” did not.
My conclusions are:
I am open to correction about these conclusions by anyone more knowledgeable.
As a follow up to my last, one of the DACA requirements was that the applicant had no lawful status on June 15, 2012 (the start of President Obama’s DACA policy). They also had to be living in the US continuously since June 15, 2007.
This confirms my suspicion that the roughly 700,000 DACA applicants could not have had proof of lawful status in the US prior to the DACA program itself, which means that they could not have been carrying proof of such status prior to June 15, 2012, which means that they were committing a federal crime each and every moment that they were in the US prior to June 15, 2012.
My conclusion is that the “dreamers” are all criminals individually, under federal law, whether they applied for DACA or not. Both they, and their parents, are criminals.