Congress’s Chance to Do Its Job and Solve the Dreamers’ Dilemma A bipartisan majority supported Obama’s DACA goal, but not necessarily his unilateral action.By Jason L. Riley
https://www.wsj.com/articles/congresss-chance-to-do-its-job-and-solve-the-dreamers-dilemma-1504653164
Republicans have spent the past five years grumbling about how President Obama used executive power to give temporary work permits to people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Now GOP lawmakers have a chance to put up or shut up.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the Trump administration is ending this program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, but with a six-month delay intended to give Congress time to do its job and address the issue with legislation. Mr. Trump made a campaign pledge to rescind all executive actions taken by President Obama, who often acted unilaterally when Congress wouldn’t bend to his will. But Mr. Trump’s view of DACA recipients, also known as “Dreamers,” has been more complicated.
The president believes that his calls for a border wall and his tough rhetoric on immigrant gangs and sanctuary cities helped him get elected, and perhaps it did. He also understands, though, that all illegal immigration doesn’t warrant the same response. “We love the Dreamers,” he said last week from the Oval Office. “We think the Dreamers are terrific.” At the same time, the administration has continued to insist that DACA is unlawful and can’t withstand legal challenge. In a Tuesday statement explaining why he rescinded the program, Mr. Trump said: “The legislative branch, not the executive branch, writes these laws—this is the bedrock of our constitutional system, which I took a solemn oath to preserve, protect, and defend.”
A Pew survey taken in 2012, shortly after Mr. Obama issued his DACA order, put its support at only 46%. Yet 70% of the respondents—including 53% of Republicans—said illegal immigrants in the U.S. “should have a way to stay in the country legally.” In other words, a bipartisan majority supported Mr. Obama’s goal but not necessarily his method. Process matters, and Republicans now have an opportunity to get it right.
Finding a way to avoid deporting about 800,000 DACA recipients would seem to be a no-brainer politically. In an NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll last week, 64% of Americans said they supported DACA, and 71% said that “most undocumented immigrants working in the United States” should be “offered a chance to apply for legal status.” For comparison, Mr. Trump’s approval rating was 39%. An amnesty for DACA recipients wouldn’t be popular with the president’s base, but Dreamers are still far more popular than Mr. Trump.
Republican governors such as Rick Scott of Florida, an outspoken supporter of the president, have come to the defense of DACA immigrants. So have business groups and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill like Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Speaker Paul Ryan, who’s convinced that a legislative fix is possible. Measures already in the works include a bill co-sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois. To earn legal status under their plan, modeled on DACA, you’d have to pass a background check, pay a fee, be employed or enlisted in the military, and speak English, among other requirements.CONTINUE AT SITE
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