During his 77-minute, free-wheeling news conference on Thursday, President Trump said something interesting on the subject of immigration enforcement that easily got lost in the outrage over the obsession about “fake news.” Perhaps the immigration hardliner is starting to become more pragmatic, at least on immigration.
Asked by reporters about what he plans to do with his predecessor’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Trump gave an entirely conflicted response. In effect, he hasn’t made a decision about the policy one way or the other because it’s such a consequential one to make.
“This is a very, very difficult for me, one of the most difficult subjects,” he said. “You have these incredible kids,” who came into the United States with their parents at a young age and who would be removed from the country if DACA were abolished.
Yet keeping the program intact would likely be greeted by immigration hardliners on Capitol Hill, pro-immigration enforcement groups that supported Trump throughout his campaign, and millions of his voters as a betrayal of what they thought they were getting from the no-nonsense Trump: someone who would bring law and order back to the U.S. regardless of how negative the politics or how much of a killing he would take in the press.
The last thing Trump wants to be pejoratively referred to is as a typical, spineless, duplicitous politician, the very people in the political establishment he successfully campaigned against.
On DACA, Trump is indeed presented with an enormously complicated choice. Any decision he signs off on will be fodder for the political pundits and the news media that he despises with such animosity. Either let the roughly 750,000 young people who are enrolled in the program to continue working and studying in the U.S. without worrying about deportation, or terminate the prosecutorial discretion embodied in the policy and remove them.
He ought to take the first choice, not only for the obvious moral and compassionate reasons, but for practical reasons as well. The vast majority of these kids and young adults are contributing to our economy. It would also allow federal law enforcement to free up resources that would be more wisely levied against criminals who are much higher priorities.
On its face, DACA is an act of pragmatism just as it’s an act of compassion. Many of the “Dreamers” have known no other upbringing, no other culture, and no environment other than the U.S. Some were already working low-paying jobs and being paid under the table by their employers for fear of attracting the government’s attention.
Yes, they crossed the border illegally, but they weren’t doing so of their own volition. When you’re a kid, you don’t get much influence over family decisions. When your parents move, you follow along. Dreamers are, in effect, Americans like the rest of us, just without the papers to prove it.
Throwing them out based on the actions of their parents would be highly immoral and plunge many of them into an environment they may have never experienced before, in a country they haven’t set foot in for years, speaking a language they may not understand.
There is more to DACA than ethics, however. The program at its core is a mechanism to free up law enforcement resources during a time when immigration agents are pinching pennies. When federal spending is capped, immigration agents are asked to put the finite funds they have to good use. Unless Republicans and Democrats can beat the odds of the last few years and magically come up with a budget formula that allows Congress to abolish the budget caps (very unlikely), the need to prioritize and get the best bang for your buck isn’t going to change in the near future.
Spending that money on deporting children, teenagers, and people in their 20s who are contributing to the American workforce, seeking their degrees in college, and living as law-abiding guests of the U.S. would be the definition of wasting precious taxpayer money. ICE can make its biggest impact by deporting people who are convicted felons, not the 750,000 children who are Americans in all but name.
There is no question the Trump administration should beef up defenses and patrols along the southern border. Several thousand additional border patrol agents wouldn’t be a bad thing either. Indeed, you’ll discover how difficult it is to find an American of any political belief who isn’t supportive of policing our borders and decreasing the flow of illegal entry into the U.S.
DACA, though, is a program that does a lot more good than bad for the U.S. Trump should keep it on the books.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a fellow at Defense Priorities. His opinions are his own.
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