Dream big. Legalize those in DACA

South Florida’s three Republican members of Congress have chosen the right side in their party’s civil war over immigration.

Reps. Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have signed the discharge petition that would force a vote on legislation to grant legal status to the roughly 700,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. If four more GOP members sign and all 193 Democrats go along, House Speaker Paul Ryan would have to hold a vote.

It shouldn’t be this hard. Polls consistently show that large majorities of Americans support permanent residency for those in the program created by President Obama in 2012. Their parents brought them here as children. They must have been younger than 16 when they arrived. They must have lived here continuously since June 2007.

To stay in the program, which lets them avoid deportation, participants must be in school, have a high school diploma or be an honorably discharged veteran. They must not have a significant criminal record or pose a threat to national security and public safety. They must register every year.

Despite these requirements, GOP members of the self-described House Freedom Caucus and their right-wing media allies consider DACA to be “amnesty.” Last week, they killed the House version of the farm bill because Ryan wouldn’t allow a vote on legislation that would simply continue temporary status for DACA participants and leave them in limbo.

Just 27,000 DACA participants live in Florida. The numbers are far higher in Texas and California. DACA politics, though, could matter a lot in Florida.

Democrats must pick up 24 seats to retake the House. Hillary Clinton won 25 of the seats they are targeting. Those include, by wide margins, Curbelo’s 26th District and Ros-Lehtinen’s 27th, both in MiamiDade County.

Curbelo is seeking re-election and has been advocating regularly for DACA participants. Ros-Lehtinen, who had attracted strong cross-party appeal during nearly 30 years in the House, is retiring. In DiazBalart’s 25th District, Trump beat Clinton by fewer than two percentage points.

Curbelo, Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen generally have disagreed with Trump and other GOP hardliners on immigration. Curbelo and Diaz-Balart, however, obviously believe that if Republicans won’t even allow a vote on DACA, they could lose their seats and their party could lose its majority. Not surprisingly, the other Republican signers of the discharge petition also represent swing districts, most of them in the Northeast and West.

Meanwhile, Freedom Caucus members insist that a vote on DACA could jeopardize GOP chances in the mid-term elections by discouraging the anti-immigrant GOP base. Their theory is that low turnout would swing the House to the Democrats.

Even if the discharge petition got enough signatories and forced a successful vote, the chances of action on DACA are low. The Senate would have to approve any legislation, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’s done with immigration for the year. Trump said this week that he wouldn’t sign any bill “unless it improves a wall, and I mean a wall, a real wall.”

Still, the discharge petition is an attempt to end minority rule on immigration. For 17 years, Congress has tried to resolve the issue of these young arrivals. What began as a bipartisan push has become much more partisan, with Republicans as the obstructionists.

During the lame-duck session in 2010, it appeared the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) bill would pass. Senate Republicans, however, blocked it. Two years later, Obama issued his order on DACA.

As for Trump, he lateraled the issue to Congress in March 2017 by suspending the program. Since then, courts regularly have ruled against the president because he didn’t provide a reason for his decision. This year, Trump briefly supported immigration reform, just as he briefly supported gun control legislation after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre.

Resistance to GOP intransigence on immigration also is coming from outside Congress. Megadonors Charles and David Koch support a DACA fix. Republican donor John Rowe of Chicago told Politico this week that he would not support candidates who refuse to sign the discharge petition and will back candidates who favor DACA legislation.

Rowe helped to raise $50,000 for Curbelo, calling him “my kind of Republican — moderate on social issues and very much pro-immigrant. He wants a Republican Party that doesn’t look “all old, white and male.”

DACA participants are Americans in all but name. Letting them stay would be good politics for the Republican Party and good policy for the country.