By Sen. Tom Cotton’s assessment, “codifying” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will have “two negative side effects.”
First, the senator explained in a Tuesday interview with the editorial board of the Washington Examiner, DACA is “going to create an entire new category of persons who are eligible for chain migration.”
“The very first people that would be eligible,” Cotton observed, “are the parents of the DACA recipients, which is to say the very people who broke the law by bringing their kids here.”
“If we don’t change underlying laws about chain migration, which account for almost two-thirds of all green cards this country gives out every year, then this could be the largest amnesty in the history of the United States,” he cautioned.
Cotton also said efforts to codify DACA would “encourage more illegal immigration with children, as happened in the summer of 2014.”
“There’s a reason why we had a surge of kids at the border two years after President Obama created the DACA program and after the first round of renewal,” he argued.
“If you’ve got kids, put yourself in the position of a mom or dad in El Salvador, the most dangerous place in the world, the home of MS-13,” Cotton said. “If the U.S. gives legal status to 20 and 30 somethings who came here as children, what price would you pay to get your child here now?”
“Think about the tragedies that we would be encouraging for those very people, much less the impact that would have on our communities and our workers,” the senator urged.
“A coherent sensible package,” according to Cotton, “will require compromise on both sides to control those negative side effects if we’re going to codify DACA.”
The Arkansas Republican described his legislation with Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act, as a “natural pair with any kind of codification of DACA because it puts an end to chain migration and it focuses our legal immigration system on the types of immigrants we need in our country today.”
President Trump announced his support for the RAISE Act in August, asserting that it would “reduce poverty, increase wages, and save taxpayers billions and billions of dollars.”
When asked by the Washington Examiner on Tuesday whether he’s heard any Senate Democrats express interest in the bill, Cotton replied, “moreso in the House of Representatives where they have more measured and reasonable Democrats who aren’t all competing to be the most strident anti-Trump voice in anticipation of the Iowa caucuses in 2020.”
Pointing to Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s EB-5 investor visa legislation and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin’s H-1B legislation, Cotton contended many of his colleagues in the upper chamber, “share common concerns.”
Cotton indicated he and Purdue are willing to come to the negotiating table with Democrats interested in compromising on the legislation. “Obviously, we’re open to negotiation on the way the point system works or what the total number of green cards are, once you get the policies right,” he added.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
