Dream on, but worry

With the feds deporting undocumented immigrants more indiscriminately than ever, Thursday delivered a rare bit of positive news. Unfortunately, President Trump’s show of heart looks more like a palpitation than a meaningful turn toward decency and common sense.

Under the decision just issued by the Department of Homeland Security, young people brought to the United States illegally as children will — for now — continue to get work permits and be protected from deportation.

It is a welcome reversal. As a candidate, Trump pledged to “terminate” Obama’s “illegal executive amnesties,” only to later promise compassion and decency in dealing with Dreamers.

But since Obama’s action was, for want of action by Congress, instituted with the stroke of presidential pen, Trump can undo it whenever he wishes with a stroke of his own. Homeland officials insist there has been “no final determination” about the program. What on Earth is Trump waiting for? The young men and women, who number 800,000, were often brought to the United States as babies. If entering the nation is a crime, they committed one in the same sense that a child in the backseat is responsible for a speeding ticket.

They go to school, hold down jobs, serve in the military, pay taxes. They commit crimes at rates lower than the general population. They have, in plenty of cases, American citizen children.

And speaking of children: Even as Trump gave a temporary reprieve to young people who came here as minors, he revoked an Obama order intended to shield millions of undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children .

Tied up in the courts since its proposal in 2014, that program has never been implemented.

And now it probably never will be — because Trump is more than happy to tear families apart.

If you expect too much sanity on immigration from this administration, you’re a dreamer.