Fixing DACA

“Now more than ever, we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a good future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the Dreamers (illegal immigrants who came to this country as children), and all of them, ‘cause our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented that are here.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)

To be sure, you have to feel empathy for the millions of migrants who have braved danger in seeking a better life in the United States, but is the Senator correct? We’re not so sure about his reasoning, or whether fixing the DACA problem is the answer, but we think he is correct about there being a labor shortage in today’s economy. Just this past week, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled Labor Shortage and Border Crisis Collided. In it the Journal states: “Released migrants struggle to secure work permits and have to rely on family, increasingly strained public services or illegal employment. Since President Biden took office, the US has admitted more than a million migrants into the system that was designed to neither to handle an influx of this scale nor allow migrants to thrive.”

In his speech, Senator Schumer castigated MAGA Republicans for their past actions preventing legislative help for Dreamers, so let’s peer through the fog of politics and take a little look at history.

DACA was established by the Obama administration in 2012, and it granted a two-year work authorization and relief from removal to people without legal status who had entered the U.S. before they were 16 years old. Potential recipients had to file an application with DHS to receive DACA immigration relief and work authorization. Approved recipients got relief from potential deportation for two years and a permit to work legally in the U.S. for that period. They were required to reapply for work authorization and deferred action every two years.

We note that DACA was established without legislative authorization. Instead, a memorandum was issued by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. The Memorandum called DACA a form of “prosecutorial discretion” and based the authority to create the program on the power of the administration to set immigration enforcement priorities without authorizing legislation.

That’s decision by the Obama Administration was quite a reversal! Originally, when asked about the lack of progress on immigration issues, President Obama stated: “I am president, I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself. We have a system of government that requires the Congress to work with the executive branch to make it happen. I’m committed to making it happen, but I’ve gotta have some partners to do it,”

What is really ironic is that former Presidents Obama and Trump were, at least for a time, in complete agreement. When President Donald Trump proposed his own DACA deal to Congress, he said the following when he called Obama’s executive decision on DACA “an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.” He went on to state that “the legislative branch, not the executive branch, writes these laws – this is the bedrock of our Constitutional system, which I took a solemn oath to preserve protect and defend – against making an end-run around Congress and violating the core tenets that sustain our Republic”

In our opinion, both former presidents were correct. If you are really worried about “the threat to democracy,” you don’t want any president to have the power to make major decisions and act unilaterally act without the passage of legislation by our elected representative in Congress. This was especially true in the case of DACA, for many of the provisions in the Obama Administration’s memorandum were previously rejected by Congress. President Obama acted unilaterally because he could not get Congress to agree with his proposals.

So, we think Senator Schumer is definitely correct in seeking bipartisan legislation in Congress. However, if he really wants a deal, he should be looking for a compromise. He should seek a deal that not only works to address the situation of the current Dreamers, but one that also ensures that the situation doesn’t keep occurring over and over again. In our opinion he should start by remembering the words of former President Obama.

Speaking at December 2007 debate in the Democratic presidential primary, then-Senator Obama pledged as president to “make sure that the federal government does what it’s supposed to do, which is to do a better job of closing our borders and preventing hundreds of thousands of people to pour in.”

Well, we’re speaking millions now, “not hundreds of thousands,” so the immigration situation is definitely worse. It is painfully plain to see that, judging by former President Obama’s dictum, President Biden has failed miserably in “closing our borders.” The huge influx of migrants is overwhelming our immigration system and substantially raising the cost of hosting and taking care of these migrants, especially in the border states. Maybe if the President and the vice-President would deign to occasionally visit the border, they might better understand why so many Republicans and Independents are upset, and maybe then the Democrats might be willing to seek a reasonable compromise.