Protecting Dreamers

Let’s stipulate for the record as we enter the latest thorny debate over immigration that executive orders are a lousy way to make law.

They were a lousy way for President Obama to do an end run around Congress and they remain a perfectly dreadful way for President Trump to enact his often misguided policies.

Frankly we warned back when Obama was attempting to write his own immigration policy via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that without actual legislation it was a promise that in the future could easily be broken.

The program has shielded from deportation some 800,000 students and workers brought to this country, yes, illegally but through no fault of their own. They are high school or college graduates, some have served honorably in the U.S. military and under the provisions of the program they must have never have been convicted of a felony. They are, in short, good citizens, contributing to the economies of their states and of this nation.

In fact, according to a Cato Institute report the loss of this talent pool will result in $215 billion in lost GDP and a direct $60 billion loss of federal tax revenue. The already hard pressed state of Texas would take a $25 billion hit.

“President Obama does not have the authority to do what he did ... we’ve made that very clear,” U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a radio interview yesterday. “Having said all of that, there are people who are in limbo. These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don’t know another home. And so I really do believe that there needs to be a legislative solution.

“I believe that this is something that Congress has to fix,” he added.

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis and U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, both Florida Republicans, are already crafting a version of the Dreamers Act, which would provide a path to citizenship — and do it the right way this time.

Congress can and must act.