Yesterday Just the News reported that a federal judge has reinstated DACA. DACA is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that would provide people brought into America illegally as children a path to citizenship. DACA was put in place by an executive order by President Obama. When President Trump tried to undo that executive order, which supposedly he is allowed to do, the courts got involved. It went to the Supreme Court, and they told President Trump he was doing it wrong. So we are essentially back at square one.
The article reports:
The DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) saga continues its long and winding road through all branches of government, as a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled on Friday that these undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children can once again apply to remain in this country legally.
This goes back to the Obama administration, who said repeatedly that “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,” and words to that effect.
But finally he gave up on Congress and in June of 2012, he signed DACA into law as an executive directive and said that it was “a temporary stopgap measure.”
President Trump had planned to end it, and then offered it as part of a grand bargain to get a wall built and to end chain migration. The Democrats did not accept his offer. Finally he attempted to rescind the Obama directive and end the program, but the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against him in June of this year on the basis that he hadn’t properly used the Administrative Procedure Act, not on the merits or the constitutionality of the case.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis fully restored the Obama-era program. He ordered the Department of Homeland Security to begin accepting new applications on Monday.
The Trump administration can now go back to court. I do have compassion for the children who were brought here with no say in the matter. However, DACA as it is currently set up is an invitation to fraud. We have MS-13 gang members lying about their age to get into the country. We have no real handle on how many people this will impact. What do you say when you see a person who has waiting years to immigrate to America, doing it the right way and paying the cost and they watch someone who came illegally step in front of them in line? This whole program needs to go back to the drawing board along with our existing immigration policies.