Alright everyone, it is time to stop freaking out. President Trump is not trying to hurt all of the “dreamers.” He is trying to help them out. I know it sounds nuts and that is a bold claim, but it is true, despite what the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed are trying to report. lright everyone, it is time to stop freaking out. President Trump is not trying to hurt all of the “dreamers.” He is trying to help them out. I know it sounds nuts and that is a bold claim, but it is true, despite what the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed are trying to report. To understand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), you have to know its history. In 2012, former President Barack Obama was in the throes of a re-election campaign against Republican Mitt Romney. The Obama campaign decided to target the minority group of Mexican-Americans to win the presidency once again. To win over the hearts of the Hispanic community, the President decided to give a blanket amnesty to the “dreamers,” or kids who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents.
Obama knew this would secure the Mexican vote, and thus his re-election. He also created the Deferred Action for Parents of Childhood Arrivals (DAPA), to “keep families together.” What is imperative to understand is that DACA and DAPA were put in place under executive action – not through Congress and not as a piece of actual legislation. They were just documents signed by the president that could have been taken out of law when Obama left office.
What Obama did with DACA and DAPA was unconstitutional. Yes, I said it. It was not legally allowed. After he signed the executive action into law, Obama tried to give these people legal working papers. He said that since his Department of Justice (DOJ) was not going to prosecute these people, they should just be given legal working papers. This idea was understandably struck down by numerous courts across the U.S. because the judges agreed that it is one thing for the President to decide not to prosecute people, but it is a completely different situation when he decides to skip the process and give them all the proper working documents. Without congressional legislation, that action is – you guessed it – unconstitutional. Does the term “separation of powers” ring any bells?
Due to their newfound security under the president’s illegal and unprecedented promise of amnesty to the illegal immigrants, many undocumented citizens gave the government all of their information, not realizing that a new president has the (constitutional) power to walk back this blanket amnesty program and keep his access to all of their information. So, what did Trump actually do? The Trump administration came out last Tuesday and said that DACA will no longer be taking new applicants beginning after Sept. 6, and a small number of those whose current paperwork expires between now and March 5 can apply for a new 2-year permit before Oct. 5. Then, President Trump said that after March 5, his administration will not start deporting people in mass numbers, but will instead focus on criminals. So nothing actually changed except for the fact that moving forward, people who come into America illegally will not be getting paperwork, which was illegal in the first place.
By taking these actions, Donald Trump is strengthening DACA. You see, he is sending a message to Congress saying, ‘I am not afraid to get rid of these illegal Obama-era executive actions.’ So, what he proposes Congress does instead is both humane and constitutionally sound. So basically, if this happens with Congress, DACA will not be repealed but instead will become law, and these so-called “dreamers” will actually be able to have more certainty in the United States of America. Imagine that: President Trump actually supporting the assimilation of immigrant children through constitutional means.
If you couldn’t tell, I am a Trump supporter and have been since day one. I do not harbor bigoted opinions as many would like to assume all Trump supporters do. I just care about America, the law, the Constitution and U.S. citizens. I disagree with DACA as a law entirely. I believe that if someone wants to be a U.S. citizen, instead of paying an insane amount of money to a “coyote” and risking his life and the lives of his family in an attempt to cross the border, he should instead walk over to the nearest U.S. embassy and get a legal path to citizenship like my great-great-grandfather did, and like the overwhelming majority of the other immigrants that have built this great nation. There is a reason for the process we have put in place. There is a reason we have laws in this country, and the only fair way to become a U.S. citizen is to go through the legal process
