DACA covers immigrants who were brought to the US illegally by their parents when they were children. The key operative word here is “illegally” (not “undocumented” as the Obama administration used to love calling them, to take away the notion they were in the US illegally). Truthfully, the only thing the government has to consider is that people covered by Obama’s illegal DACA executive order are in the United States illegally. While the very ultra-liberal San Francisco Federal Court (no surprise that all of the plaintiffs from other jurisdictions chose that jurisdiction to hear the case, a blatant example of forum shopping) cast the question as Constitutional, the administration’s discontinuance of DACA is not unconstitutional, it is simply a legal question of US immigration law, one that has been kicked down the road for almost 20 years. And the clear legal question is simply that persons in the US illegally, which all DACA persons are, are subject to deportation. There is no current law that allows them to stay, aside from Obama’s Executive Order. The District Judge here was just buying time until the Democrats can twist a DACA solution out of the Republican Congress before the DACA program ends. It is judicial activism at its very very worst.
Is it a difficult question? Absolutely. Most DACA people are in the U.S. since infancy (though some are not) and if sent back to their parents’ home country would be “foreigners” there, having not been there since infancy. Does that entitle them to U.S. Citizenship? No, there is no law that entitles them to become citizens after having entered the U.S. illegally. The San Francisco Court is making up new law the Court cannot make. Is there any other country on earth that does not deport any who overstay their visa or illegally enter the country? No, every country deports illegal immigrants. The U.S. now has over 14 million illegal immigrants, many in California. There are 800,000 DACA immigrants. Their staying in the U.S. has always been a long-term Democratic Party strategy, because adding hundreds of thousands of voters to their rolls will sway all elections for generations. It is not a question of a difficult moral issue, but rather a plain political choice.
I am in favor of letting DACA people stay (and some other long-term, non-criminal immigrants). However, I would prohibit them, as a condition of staying, from ever becoming U.S. Citizens, and from ever becoming citizens as a parent of American citizens (because of chain migration, their children are American citizens, and they can argue their status is rendered legal, and apply for citizenship), granting some form of permanent Green Card without a path to citizenship, which will never be available to anyone who entered the U.S. after a certain date sometime in the past 5 years, or whichever period is acceptable, as long as it has already expired. It is a fair trade. The reason for the harshness in dealing with DACA people is to ensure anyone who sneaks into the U.S. understands they cannot become a citizen by having U.S. babies, a common canard, and are subject to deportation. There is a line to get citizenship, and they need to get at the back of the line.
It is most curious how the 9th Circuit federal courts treated Obama with gentleness, despite the illegality of most of his Executive Orders (which basically circumvented the U.S. Legislative process, because he knew he could not win if the Congress voted on those issues), yet treat the current administration, doing the same thing, as a pariah. In its last decision killing the temporary order issued by another highly liberal Court in Hawaii, upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court overturned the order because of its over-broadness. The same would apply here.
President Obama turned the U.S. legal system upside down, and legislated his own socialist agenda through executive order. The thing is, executive orders live only as long as a President is in office. Once he/she leaves, those orders are subject to revocation, and the current administration has set about undoing Obama’s sharp turn towards the fascism of the left, something that is still echoing a year after Obama’s term ended. What the Great Divider (Obama) rendered by fiat (political correctness at its worst, fascism of the left at its worst, reverse racism at its worst, judicial activism at its very worst, Oppeasement of evil, at its worst, withdrawal of the U.S. from a leadership role in the world, at its worst, betrayal of almost every ally, at its worst, fecklessness at its worst) is being undone. Note that North Korea is talking to the South…many will say it is a slap in the face of President Trump, who used strident rhetoric for the first time in two decades against the Hermit Kingdom – but I believe strongly it is Junior using the Olympics BECAUSE of the stridency as a good excuse to dial down the conflict, one of the chief purposes of the stridency in the first place. The best Obama could muster against evil was tutting…tutting! That really helped with Syria, didn’t it? Here we are years down the road from an invisible red line, millions of refugees and nothing to show from Obama’s spinelessness and Oppeasement. Bombing the airstrip in Syria when Assad used chemical weapons was the best example of consequences we’ve had over there in 8 years. I’m done with Oppeasement. Whether with Communist China, Russia, Iran, the Palestinians, illegal immigrants, North Korea or other ills, what we need is less of Obama’s eternal hesitation and spinelessness, and more decisive stridency.
Strait Talk by Lee Longhwa 