Five years after the Obama administration enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, protecting immigrants who entered the United States as minors from deportation, President Donald Trump has decided he will end it if Congress does not come up with a permanent solution before March 5, 2018.
The decision was announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, and now leaves an estimated 800,000 individuals with an uncertain legal fate, prompting widespread fear and uncertainty among the nation’s immigrant communities and their allies.
The DACA program allowed qualifying individuals to apply for a permit to stay in the United States for employment or to continue their education.
By establishing a six-month delay for the program’s end, the administration has given Congress an opportunity to take action. Partisan gridlock, however, seems to jeopardize the likelihood of a solution, although Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both Catholics, have indicated a willingness to work together.
Prior to today’s announcement, the Catholic Bishops of California issued a statement in which they decried the president’s derision of immigrants as “bad hombres.”
“DACA students are not the so-called ‘bad hombres,’ an insidious label used to instill fear in others and feed the racism and nativism that unfortunately is rearing its ugly head in our cities,” they wrote.
Full story at Crux.
USCCB denounces ending DACA program:
The President and Vice President along with Chairmen of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have issued a statement denouncing the Administration’s termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program after six months.
The statement from USCCB President Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, along with USCCB Vice President, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin, chairman, Committee on Migration, and Bishop Joseph J. Tyson of Yakima, chairman of the Subcommittee on Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees, and Travelers says the “cancellation of the DACA program is reprehensible.”
“The cancellation of the DACA program is reprehensible. It causes unnecessary fear for DACA youth and their families. These youth entered the U.S. as minors and often know America as their only home. The Catholic Church has long watched with pride and admiration as DACA youth live out their daily lives with hope and a determination to flourish and contribute to society: continuing to work and provide for their families, continuing to serve in the military, and continuing to receive an education. Now, after months of anxiety and fear about their futures, these brave young people face deportation. This decision is unacceptable and does not reflect who we are as Americans.
As people of faith, we say to DACA youth – regardless of your immigration status, you are children of God and welcome in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church supports you and will advocate for you.”
Full statement here.
It was begun under a dubiously legal executive order by Obama that directed federal agencies not to enforce immigration laws. So it ends with an executive order by Trump to nullify the previous order, restoring observance and enforcement of current, dutifully enacted immigration laws. The bishops are against law and order? They are against the Constitution? On so many issues in matters of politics the bishops show themselves to be inept and ignorant. No wonder they are losing what little respect and relevance they have remaining.
DACA was unconstitutional to begin with, Trump gave 6 months for the Congress to fix it. Make them work on it.
Obama had tried to pass it through Congress, but couldn’t get it to a floor vote. Leadership on both sides knew it would have passed. It makes no sense to punish innocent children.
So, he just decided to violate the rule of law and the Constitution and be a law unto himself. Nice.
“..To DACA youth – regardless of your immigration status, you are children of God and welcome in the Catholic Church.” (Cal Bishops)
To US bishops: legal citizens and legal immigrants don’t count. Here are some facts:
* Total number of annual legal green-card immigrants: 850,000
* Since 2012, DACA amnesty-provided work permits: 800,000 to illegal “Dreamers”;
* DACA aren’t children: the avg age is 25 (Immigration Policy Institute.org)
* Each year US gov also gives out 3 million total work permits: 200,000 H1B’s, 330,000 OPT visas,
and 400,000 two-year DACA permits.
As a result, the 4 million US citizens who turn 18 every year are crowded out of getting jobs. So, bishops you are most unjust — to US…
..you are quite unjust to our own legal US 18-year-olds—many of whom are lower-income and need to work.
The notion that a child, once he or she reaches the age of reason, should find the funds to petition a court to declare them emancipated from their parents so that they could self-deport and live alone as a minor is so ludicrous, that I really have to wonder if we have a President or a TIn-Man-In-Chief
DACA arent children. Average age is 25.
Even when Lord Obama, just like his dictator buddies Castro or Maduro, passed and enacted his own order in 2012, most of these entrants were already not only illegal but adults.
The “chiiiiillldren” story is a big ruse as usual.
Better than that street organizer
How do we uphold the rule of law and incentivize migrants to enter our Country legally?
The Church should work with Congress and the President to improve our existing immigration laws so that migrants can come here legally.
We need to disincentivize illegal migration by incentivizing legal migration.
Other than refugees and the persecuted, we should end unlawful entry to build order in our migration system.
A hypothetical: I came to the US as a baby, two years old. My parents came illegally and brought me with them. They wanted me to grow up in the US just like any other kid. They insisted that I speak only English, and they learned the language too. I went to K-8, high school, and last year I graduated with a degree in Engineering. I have a new job that allows me to help support my three younger siblings who are US citizens. Now, they want to deport me. I don’t speak Spanish well enough to survive in South America, I haven’t been back to my native country since I was two. I know no one in my native country. Where will you send me? How will I live? Why do you want me to go after you educated me, I paid taxes, etc? Why?
What you describe is in reality what one would call “a hard case” or better yet, “an hallucination.”
Hymie, the hypothetical isn’t a “hard case.” It is typical. My grand children go to school and college with these kids and relate their stories on a regular basis. Most of the DACA kids/young adults don’t know anything about the land they would be sent to. They are US citizens in every way except documentation. Their younger brothers and sisters, born here, are citizens. So, do we send the older child back but leave the younger ones here on their own? Its complicated.
Where will you send me? Back your native country.
How will I live? Like everyone else. Get a job.
Why do you want me to go after you educated me, I paid taxes, etc? Why? Because you are here illegally.
Not so hard, see?
If you really want to live in the US. Apply legally.
No so hard, see?
Keith, interesting opinion. But … The US is their country. They just happened to be born in another country which they don’t know, have no ties to, or know even how to live there. I don’t think the DACA thing is a simple thing. It’s more complicated that easy, see?
An Oft Repeated Scam
My Parents decided to ‘Jump the Line’ ahead of those Legally Seeking Immigrant Status, and use me as an “Anchor Baby” so as to bring the whole family under the radar.
My family paid a Trafficker to fly my Mom to LA, put her up at a “Pregnancy Hotel” until it was time for a scheduled delivery at a local hospital, and then used their system to fix us up with all the necessary paperwork – so that they could use Me as a Sympathy Hostage – and get the whole family to Jump the Line ahead of those who were following the rules.
Anybody who says this is wrong – is mean.
Another question, Michael, is if many devout Catholics and others are taking their children out of our public and some private schools because of the immorality taught there, what decent person would even want to put immigrant children into them. Could it be for immoral indoctrination? In that case how are they any better off here than they were in their country of birth?
Just for background sake – so naysayers have a better target to say nay to:
L.A. to Crackdown on Immigrant Birthing Hotels
https://ktla.com/2013/01/29/l-a-to-crackdown-on-immigrant-birthing-hotels/
LOS ANGELES (KTLA) — It’s a growing trend: Asian mothers coming to Los Angeles County to have their babies in so-called “birthing hotels.”
They’re spending up to $20,000 to have their babies in the United States, ensuring that the children are U.S. citizens.
Asian ‘anchor babies’: Wealthy Chinese come to Southern California to give birth
Shelby Grad https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-asian-anchor-babies-wealthy-chinese-20150826-story.html
It’s called “maternity tourism.”
Pregnant women travel to the United States, usually on tourist visas, so that their children will be born U.S. citizens. In Southern California, they often live with other pregnant women in suburban homes…
One affidavit related to that case quoted a law review article estimating that about 40,000 of 300,000 children born to foreign citizens in the U.S. each year are the product of birth tourism…
Investigators said they were looking for evidence of visa fraud, conspiracy and other crimes in which…
I wonder how the Catholic leaders justify illegal aliens being educated, fed, and housed at public expense while native born Americans, including black people, denied the same. At the same time companies like Apple and Google hire these illegal aliens over US Citizens.
Its called cheap labor, which some of the Democrats and Republicans both love.
Bob One–
Your hypothetical situation– which is real to thousands of the so-called Dreamers– deserves that the Congress get off its duff and fulfill its constitutional role as the legislative branch.
But the ends don’t justify the means. President Obama’s imposition was grossly unconstitutional. He should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office for his executive order. It is to the shame of the USCCB that they didn’t criticize the usurpation of constitutional power. A similar series of usurpations, this time from the judicial branch, has cost the lives of over 50 million Americans due to legalized abortion being legislated by the bench.
But our bishops are generally lawless with respect to their…
… own responsibilities and canon law, so why should we expect them to care about civil law?
Exactly, Fr. Michael. Barrack Obama did nothing out of compassion. He did it to get his immoral legislation on so-called same-sex marriages, abortion and all the other garbage put though. He cared for no one but himself, and most of the bishops do nothing but talk.
I should not have said Barrak Obama never did anything out compassion, but his actions certainly were wrong, and people will continue to do wrong if we let them get away with it.
DACA is unconstitutional. The first sentence of the article says enough, “…the Obama administration enacted…” The executive branch of our government doesn’t enact anything. That is the job of Congress. Congress did not pass any legislation enacting DACA. President Obama acted as a dictator, not as a president. The Congress and the Supreme Court are just unnecessary governmental appendages, at least until the dictator comes after you.
I don’t lack sympathy for these illegal aliens, but my own children were adopted LEGALLY from Russia and South Korea. Why should someone who is here illegally get an advantage over them?
What Obama did was illegal, and he knew it as he spoke of the requirement for Congress to act on numerous occasions before he decided to break the law. What President Trump has done is provide Congress with a 6 month window in which to act and legally provide cover for law abiding so-called dreamers. So, why are our out of control Bishops and Archbishops bashing President Trump? They need to stick to their own knitting which in my view is in very bad shape. Shame on them.
There is a range of opinions regarding the constitutionality of DACA. Trump’s Muslim ban has not fared so well in the federal courts. Let’s hope and pray that Congress will pass the DREAM Act.
Harold:
Can you cite any reputable constitutional scholar that says that Obama’s e.o. aka DACA is constitutional and legal? (No, Nancy Pelosi does not have a law degree and doesn’t count.)
Our Nation is suppose to be of a Government and People ruled by Laws approved in our Republic by our represented officials. The Law is the Law. If the Law is not followed, or broken, then what good is the Law? Anarchy begins. What does it say about the people breaking the Law? The Laws approved by our forefathers were done so for a reason, with conditions and limitations written into the Laws; but maybe not full explanations. Obama did wrong and broke the Law by not enforcing it. Of course it was all about politics and growing the demoncratic party to become the invincible party and force in its vision of communist America. President Trump and Attorney General Sessions did the right thing, if Congress doesn’t like the rescinding of…
Anonymous 2: check with Michael Tan. Mr. Tan is an attorney with the ACLU.
ACLU attorney Michael Tan is an extremist activist, has never taught at a law faculty, has never served as a judge, and is hardly a reputable legal scholar. (He did get a master’s in comparative literature though, so maybe he has an opinion on Melville or Thackeray.)
In fact, why in the world would any rational person (Harold thus exempted) heed “constitutional legal advice” from an ACLU attorney—if you could even call it that: the ACLU has taken the position that the US Constitution is obsolete and should be superseded by “international law”: see their own site:
https://www.aclu.org/issues/human-rights
Note also that the former chief counsel of the ACLU is one of the most radical, bitterly partisan (and should…
…be forced to recuse herself from decisions under the present administration, based on her own unprecedentedly biased statements), Ruth Buzzi Ginsburg. Ginsburg also has publicly lectured on replacement of the US Constitution with a new document incorporating “international law.”
No, no reputable scholar, even left-leaning scholars like Jonathan Turley, have found a basis for constitutionality in Obama’s one-man-band diktat called DACA.
“When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for his as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I the Lord, am you God.” Leviticus, 19:33
Anonymous, that is only one passage from the whole Old Testament, but if you read through it you will find that Israel set limits on immigration. For one thing, they did not allow immigrants from nations with whom they were fighting to come into their territory, except perhaps rare exceptions. They also set limits on citizenship. I think one had to be of the third generation before one could become a full citizen.
Google “St. Thomas Aquinas on immigration” to see what he said about it. I am not siding one way or another on this, it is up to Congress to fix it.
Actually, the Israelites of the Old Testament allowed foreigners to become citizens only after the second or third generation, depending on how well they assimilated. Later when they became lax about this, the country was destroyed, and the people taken into captivity because many did not follow the laws of the Lord, but became paganized.
Also, the Ammonites, Moabites and Amalekites were never allowed to become Israelite citizens in the Old Testament because of their animosity toward the Israelite people, and their laws were probably not compatible with those of the Lord and the Ten Commandments. Some of them practiced incestuous behavior for one thing.
Ending DACA, TPP and the Paris Climate Accord more than justifies my vote for our President Donald J. Trump.
“DACA Fraud Rate at ’40 to 50 Percent’, Says Former Immigration Official
https://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/daca-fraud-rate-at-40-to-50-percent-says-former-immigration-official/
The Obama Administration that lied about the vetting of illegal aliens also was in charge of the vetting of tens of thousands imported into this country by Barack—think they were really vetted. Why is American unsafe? Barack Obama and the Democrats.”