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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
Thanks AZ Patriot. Comments #29 & #30 really shed a lot of light.
‘Repatriated’.
Interlopers?
Do we believe that a 1 year old knows whether or not parents came here legally?
How is a child to know to register?
How do they even find out they are illegally here?
I’m just asking, because isn’t part of their command to register connected to their knowledge of their lack of permission to be here?
I think it is problematic to treat the dreamers the same as the registered DACA. The DACA children took the risk to register, while the others remained cloaked in the shadows.
What determines their culpability is when they knew what their parents had done.
Am I confused?
This highlights two things: (1) for purposes of deciding what the legislation will say, it is a pragmatic decision to ignore what criminality might exist with respect to the individual brought here as a child, and (2) if a persons disrespect for our law as an illegal alien has become behaviorally problematic there will no doubt be separate offenses that they have committed and can be the basis for denial of legal status independent of immigration related offenses. However, based on the interview I saw with an entitled dreamer on Tucker’s show tonight, I would make the following statement a part of the application process under the legislation:
That could work.
What makes you think that they were mostly 1 year olds?
Data on this is sketchy, at least from a quick internet search. This is surprising, as it doesn’t seem like it would be hard to get the information on the 700,000-odd DACA recipients. Here is what I found in a quick look.
The Brookings Institution (a decent center-left think tank) did an analysis of the first 1 year of DACA applications, a total of about 465,000 applicants. Characteristics:
The Brookings report includes a bar graph of age of entry, though not a chart, so I have to estimate the totals. My general recollection, raising my kids, is that they were well on their way to learning their native language by age 3.
The percent of DACA applicants who were 3 or younger at entry is less than 18%. I would imagine that almost all of these also learned the language of their country of origin, presumably spoken by their parents.
According to this Orange County Register article, 98% of DACA applicants are bilingual.
I think that the media portrayals of the “dreamers” and DACA applicants is grossly misleading. They want you to believe that there are a bunch of young adults in this country who were brought here in infancy and don’t even speak the language of their country of origin. The facts are completely different.
Frankly, their home countries might benefit greatly from an influx of young citizens with American educations and work skills.
Thanks for that info, very interesting.
My thought on the children, was less about their language, but their awareness that they were breaking American law.
They tag along on their parents’ illegal entry. What comprehension of immigration do children have?
So holding them “accountable” in the same manner as their parents seems.
Additionally, do they have to provide any proof of legal entry Or legal residential status to be registered for school?
So, these young children are essentially absorbed into our culture and communities.
I am no fan of illegal immigration, but our own squabble over immigration enforcement and documentation creates this problem.
We need to fix the mess we’ve created, and stop it from continuing to happen.
You nail the problem. As I understand it, there was a SCOTUS decision (Plyler v. Doe) in 1982 that essentially required public schools to provide free education to illegal alien children. It was a very Lefty court, with only one real conservative (Rehnquist) and 3 mostly centrists (Burger, White, O’Connor).
Of course, many Leftist jurisdictions go far beyond this, giving college tuition benefits, driver’s licenses, and the like to illegal aliens.
The question should not be whether “these young children have been absorbed into our culture.”
First, they are not young children. They are almost all adults — they can’t even apply for DACA until they are 15 and most are older. The Brookings study reports: “Those aged 15 to 18 made up 36 percent of applicants, those 19 to 23 were 40 percent of applicants, and those 24 and over comprised 24 percent of total applicants.”
Second, even if they were young children, their parents are not eligible to stay, so they should go home with their parents. Unless you like the idea of breaking up families.
Third, they have not been “absorbed into our culture” in a way that is unfair to them. As I pointed out, 98% are bilingual, and should be able to do fine in their home countries.
I see no reason to let any of them stay, absent extraordinary circumstances such as inability to speak the language of their home country (which is, at most, 2% of those who are DACA eligible). Even in these cases — why not give them language courses, then send them home?
I think that you, and many others, have been victims of blatant mischaracterization of the general demographics of the “dreamers” by the Left-wing media. It is not helpful that some of our Conservative friends, often out of understandable but excessive opposition to President Trump, seem to echo such Left-wing propaganda.
Well, absolutely, if the DACA are under 18, they should be deported with their family.
That should not even be in question.
As for the remainder, that is what the discussion is about: to determine what to do with these people, who as children, were essentially victimized by their parents decision to enter America illegally.
You are right, the demographics of the DACA are cloaked, and can add much to the discussion, for those who will entertain facts.
Honestly, all those who are adults now, over 18, had a great opportunity, to live in America, and be educated in America, and experience the possibilities.
It could be the best thing for them all to go to their homeland, and build a similar life, culture, and society.
No one ever looks at it that way.