THE FRONT BURNER: How to determine Dreamers’ fate?
Prevent future mass influx, secure America’s borders
Let’s start with what everyone agrees on: Most recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals did not make the decision to violate U.S. immigration laws. As advocates for this subset of unauthorized immigrants like to say, they are here through no fault of their own.
But neither is it the fault of the American people, or the fault of our immigration laws. The presence of an estimated 12 million unauthorized immigrants in this country is the fault of the people who knew they had no right to enter or remain in the United States, understood the potential risks for themselves and their children, and chose to violate the law anyway. Like parents who violate any law, unauthorized immigrants are responsible for any hardship or adverse consequence to their children that arises as a result of their illegal act.
The children of unauthorized immigrants are not the only victims of their parents’ bad acts. The American public — the people whom the laws were meant to protect — have paid a hefty price. American workers have lost job opportunities and wages. American schoolkids have seen educational resources diverted from their needs to address the special needs of kids who show up in classrooms unprepared and unable to speak English. Approximately $100 billion in federal, state and local tax dollars is spent providing for needs of unauthorized immigrants and their dependents every year.
But that’s all water under the bridge. The question before us now is how to deal with the 800,000 people who stepped forward and applied for President Obama’s constitutionally questionable program allowing them to remain and work in the United States temporarily, while offering the American public an ironclad guarantee that we will not be faced with millions more people brought here illegally in the coming years.
The American people have had decades of broken promises that their interests and security would be protected. Real action, with demonstrable results, must be a prerequisite to any consideration on behalf of DACA recipients. At a minimum, that must include:
True border security. Additional Border Patrol manpower, increased surveillance capability such as sensors, night-vision cameras and drones, additional detention facilities and construction of the border fence approved by Congress in 2006.
Mandatory use of E-Verify for all U.S. employers. U.S. jobs are a powerful magnet to illegal immigration. Requiring that the eligibility of all newly hired workers be electronically verified, much like all credit-card purchases, would significantly eliminate the incentive for people to cross our borders illegally or overstay temporary visas. An end to sanctuary policies. The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, approved by the House in June, clearly defines the responsibilities of local police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts, and allows victims of crimes committed by aliens returned to the streets as a result of sanctuary policies to hold those jurisdictions accountable. Enactment of the RAISE Act, eliminating family-chain migration. Aside from the basic common sense of a legal immigration policy that selects people based on individual merit, ending immigration entitlements for extended family members would prevent an amnesty for DACA recipients from becoming a much broader amnesty as they eventually sponsor the very parents who are culpable for them having been here illegally.
When President Trump announced his decision to phase out DACA, he gave Congress a six-month window to work out some sort of permanent solution for the beneficiaries of the program. That can only happen if the advocates in Congress for DACA recipients are prepared to act in good faith. They must be prepared to honor past promises and commitments to deter and prevent mass illegal immigration, and accept that any amnesty must be limited to “innocent” unauthorized immigrants.
The clock is ticking.
Advocates in Congress for DACA recipients must act in good faith.