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What about the Dreamers?
Forty years ago, Republicans and Democrats passed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation. It included a grand compromise: Amnesty for illegals currently in the country and a commitment to secure the border so that this would be the LAST amnesty.
Guess what? The border was not secured.
During the Obama administration, pressure built for new amnesty legislation. This time, the Republicans wanted something more than a promise to secure the border. They wanted a wall. Democrats would not agree to a wall, so Republicans refused to agree to a new amnesty.
During this time, a new term entered our vocabulary — the Dreamers. These were people brought into the country illegally when they were young children. They had no connection to their home county. They were, and are, very deserving of sympathy and compassion. When it became clear there would be no new legislation, Obama repeatedly stated he was without the authority to protect the Dreamers. After months of saying he could not act unilaterally, Obama acted unilaterally. Citing the concept of prosecutorial discretion, Obama simply declared that all the Dreamers could stay — forever.
Biden also invoked Prosecutorial Discretion to announce that everyone gets to stay.
Were these actions a totally unprecedented and inappropriate use of prosecutorial discretion? Yes. Has the Supreme Court issued any rulings on this subject? No.
Well, there is now a new prosecutor. His name is Trump. Does he have discretion to deport the Dreamers? Yes, he does. Congress has never passed any legislation for the Dreamers. A prosecutorial decision not to prosecute someone does not make their illegal acts suddenly legal.
Does Trump want to deport the Dreamers? I doubt it. Dreamers still invoke sympathy and compassion. But, after Obama’s lawless act, and Biden’s lawless acts, law-abiding citizens are absolutely justified in being angry. The Democrats acted in bad faith 40 years ago, they acted in bad faith 10 years ago, and they acted in bad faith throughout the Biden years.
If Trump tried to deport a Dreamer, would a Federal District Judge issue an injunction to stop him? Absolutely. Would that district court judge be upheld on appeal? He shouldn’t be. There is zero precedent for the notion that one prosecutor can bind a future prosecutor by the use of prosecutorial discretion.
Do Dreamers have some sort of due process rights that other illegals don’t have? Some district judge will say yes, but when he does, he is just making stuff up.
Obama and Biden have taken immigration law to the top of a skyscraper and thrown it out the window. Instead of an orderly, lawful process, we have 30 million shards of glass on the ground. It is Trump’s job to clean up the mess. Trump would like to use a broom. The Democrats insist he must use tweezers. The Democrats have not acted in good faith regarding immigration for over fifty years. The best solution to today’s problems is thoughtful legislation from Congress. Such legislation will not receive a single Democrat vote.
G-Pub
Published in Immigration
A great summary of the current abysmal situation.
I can have some sympathy for the “Dreamers” but ultimately the fault/blame is with their parents, not the US. Children suffer every day from their parents committing crimes, I’m not sure the “Dreamers” need special treatment beyond what US citizen children get when their parents commit crimes.
I’ve always thought that whoever brought them here should pay the price. The dreamers may deserve compassion, but not the parents. Send the parents back. Otherwise it’s just another case where there are no consequences.
But then you’re “separating families!” etc. But of course that’s not a problem when Obama and others on the left do it.
The “broom” vs. “tweezers” metaphorical comparison is spot on!
Fact check: True.
Thank you thank you thank you!
You summed up exactly what I keep trying to say.
We have been manipulated, and are now being gaslit.
A long time ago this could all have been handled, and the current disaster prevented.
But they wanted the current disaster. It was the whole point!
And it worked. Now, in order to fix it, we have to appear brutal, possibly invoke whole new procedures, maybe based on a “martial law” model: we don’t like it and didn’t want to do it, but the boat is sinking and we are going to save it! And no, it’s not going to be pretty.
They are also counting on that, that they have backed us into a corner that we can’t escape from, because they own communication. They can cynically caterwaul like gollum once he’s caught, counting on our good nature to release him.
But we can’t. We must understand that the left is totally untrustworthy, and we must decide how to save our country and then execute, without any input from them. Screw ‘em.
Obama announced that all Dreamers could stay, but he also saw to it that ICE deported many of them.
I doubt that try as he might, Pres Trump will come anywhere near as close to the numbers of people that Obama/Biden had deported.
When Trump attempts to deport an airliner full of immigrants the matter becomes front page news.
But the media ignored Obama and the kids in cages, as well as those Dreamers who failed to be recipients of the stated benefits of his oratory.
It turns out that much of Obama’s “deportation” was illusory. Apparently someone who was intercepted at the border, and immediately turned back, was counted as a “deportation.”
Kinda like Obama’s reports of “jobs created or saved” ?