DACA fallout has people DREAMing of Canada

Another week, another political firestorm south of the border.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement his administration would be phasing out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program instantly ignited protests and fierce debates over immigration policy in that country.

Depending what happens over the next six months, DACA’s end could well prompt new waves of migrants — young, educated and law-abiding — to decide to head to Canada, by the thousands, to seek asylum.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama’s DACA program, brought in five years ago, was never meant to be a permanent solution.

Since 2001, Congress had attempted and failed on a number of occasions to pass a law giving so-called Dreamers — children of undocumented immigrants who’d grown up in America — a viable path to citizenship or permanent residency.

So, in 2012, Obama humanely issued an executive order allowing those young people a short-term way — two-year permits — to legally work and study in the place they knew as home.

DACA’s constitutionality has been fiercely debated ever since.

Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, defended their decision as necessary on legal grounds, saying DACA wouldn’t stand up in court. Nine state attorneys general were prepared to challenge DACA’s constitutionality. Given the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court, DACA didn’t seem to have much chance of surviving, though a court battle would have taken time.

Trump, who’s claimed he’s sympathetic to Dreamers’ plight, chose to satisfy a campaign promise by tossing the issue into Congress’s lap.

He delayed DACA’s windup for six months to allow Congress to pass immigration reform.

A lasting solution does require legislation, but Congress, heading into a midterm election year with a lot already on its legislative plate, will be hard-pressed to deliver.

Republicans themselves are fractured on whether they’d support a new DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act.

When the Trump administration indicated temporary protected status for post-2010 earthquake Haitian migrants might be lifted earlier this summer, thousands flooded across the Quebec border.

With the future now unclear for up to 800,000 DACA registrants, Canada should prepare for the possibility Congress won’t act and substantial numbers could flee north.