DACA as a political trap
On Thursday, the Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda—and maybe his re-election prospects. The court ruled, by a 5-to4 margin, that the Trump administration failed to follow procedure and therefore can’t enact its plan to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program designed to stop deportations of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.
Ending DACA was never a great issue for Trump. Sure, some Trumpian loyalists backed the president on it: Thirty-six percent of Republicans said they opposed “granting permanent legal status to immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally when they were children” in a 2018 Pew Research Center poll.
But in that same survey, 54 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of the overall public favored that idea.
If Trump does take a hit with Hispanic voters, it really could damage his re-election bid. Contrary to popular belief, Trump does have a genuine Hispanic base: 28 percent voted for him in the 2016 election, and he has kept many of those voters in the fold throughout his first term.
The smart move for Trump is to temporarily take a loss on DACA and move on. He can still loudly proclaim his opposition to immigration in general and please his most devoted fans without resurrecting an issue where roughly three-quarters of Americans disagree with him.
It’s unclear whether he will make that choice, or whether he’s capable of making it. Team Trump might sensibly decide to leave this decision alone, or the president might get distracted by the inevitable deluge of news that will hit next week.
But Trump has made a habit of intentionally waging unpopular base-pleasing policy wars. He shut the government down over border wall funding, pushed unpopular Affordable Care Act replacements, championed Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, endorsed hugely controversial Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race—the list goes on. Trying to revive a fight over DACA would be extremely in character for Trump.
And that’s why Team Trump should beware of DACA. Most DACA-supporting Republicans will prioritize other issues over immigration, follow their partisan loyalties and support Trump despite his stance on this issue. But he can’t afford to shed the few who could leave over this.
The president has already lost ground because of his failures to competently combat the coronavirus and empathetically engage with the antiracism protests of the past few weeks. Trump needs to start thinking strategically and showing a little more empathy—or this might be his last term in the White House.