A DYSFUNCTIONAL PRESIDENT GIVES “DREAMERS” TO A DYSFUNCTIONAL CONGRESS!

…You hear about “Dreamers”, but where do they live in America?

 

“Dreamers: Model young candidates for US citizenship.”

 

Our “Liar-in-Chief” has once again kicked the issue of US immigration down the road for at least another six months.

 

What we have here is that there are 800,000 young people that were brought illegally to the United States as children by their parents.  When Congress decided to not deal with this issue, President Obama intervened and used a presidential order to set up the DACA situation.  DACA stands for: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and these children were protected from deportation if they were doing as follows:

 

·       Pursuing their education in high school or college

·       Enlisted in the US military

·       Gainfully employed and paying taxes

·       Had a clean record with the local & federal authorities

They were basically what could be called “Model young candidates for US citizenship.”

 

In addition, Dreamers were NOT eligible for any welfare or unemployment income, and they could not receive any financial support from federal or state governments.

 

As is standard procedure for this president, since he doesn’t know how to fix many situations, he just passes them off to the same organization that hasn’t been able to fix it over the last decade.  Trump has basically given up and assigned the issue to a group that is even more dysfunctional than the president, (if that’s even possible).

 

Just look at the congressional record to date:

 

They couldn’t repeal Obamacare; they can’t seem to pass a budget; (which is one of their primary jobs); they are arguing about whether they should raise the debt ceiling; and now they are expected to pass legislation that would protect young adult undocumented immigrants.  Immigrants that had no choice in the matter of them coming here as children, and young immigrants that have only known the United States as their home.

 

I am hoping that none of these “Dreamers” intend to hold their breaths until the US Congress comes up with an answer to their dilemma.  That just ain’t gonna work.

 

“They [Congress] can't come together for the things they agree on,” said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy expert with the anything but liberal, Cato Institute. “It's going to be impossible to bring them [Congress] together for things they don't agree on.”

The root of the problem is that the US Congress is divided into three parties: Democrats, traditional Republicans and Trump Republicans. And the two Republican parties have very different ideas of a politically winning argument on immigration.

 

The real issue is: “TIME”.

 

Just because of Trump’s hate of President Obama, Trump will let President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals phase out in six months. But even before he tossed DACA to the lawmakers, Congress came back to work with a “to-do list” straight out of legislative hell.

 

Congress has to: fund the government, raise the debt ceiling, pass Hurricane Harvey aid, and reauthorize a bunch of federal programs, including the National Flood Insurance Program.  All of this by the end of this month. Oh, and let’s not forget that Trump and the Republican leaders want to also work on the very difficult tax-code overhaul debate.

 

But as we are all very aware, the Republican run Congress only works about 3-4 short-days a week and they are very well versed in kicking that can down the road.  Therefore, many of these battles could take the rest of the year, not the rest of the month, to wrap them up.

 

As the past has shown we citizens time and time again, by the time this Congress could get to what is needed in immigration restructuring, it will probably be 2018.  But this is only if there isn’t a government shutdown in the meantime.  And 2018 is an election year for members of the House of Representatives.  Therefore, this is when most of those up for election will be playing it safe by playing basic politics and not taking on difficult issues like immigration.

 

The policy expert Nowrasteh put it this way:  “If Congress waits to consider DACA protections in 2018, that would be virtually impossible.  The last time that Congress passed any kind of immigration liberalization in an election year was 1990, and that was not nearly the toxic environment [in Congress] that it is today. Not even close.”

 

But perhaps, it’s not as bad as all that for the Dreamers.

 

The Dreamer advocates don't need all the Republicans in Congress to support legislation to protect them.  Nearly all the Democrats in Congress are in support of protections for Dreamers.  In the House, DACA advocates would only need 24 Republicans to join the Democrats. In the Senate they would only need 12 Republicans.  And not supporting the Dreamers would not look well as most Americans are in support of the Dreamers.

The leadership in both Houses seem OK in bringing the Dreamer issue up for taking a vote. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) seems amenable to bringing it up. So does the powerful conservative voice, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).  Even the vulnerable up for re-election Senate Republican, Jeff Flake (AZ) is supportive. Only the old Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), he is the one GOP leader that hasn't commented on the issue.

 

In addition, Dreamers are a sympathetic group for the country. They came here under the age of 16, through no fault of their own. Many of them are as Americanized as anyone who happened to be born here. One Dreamer was accidently killed while rescuing people from Hurricane Harvey.

 

If there's any group of undocumented immigrants that Republicans would proactively try to protect, this group of Dreamers would be it.

The traditional Republicans realize that if they ignore Dreamers, they do so at their own political risk.  Mr. Nowrasteh warned, “You don't get to come back from this and pretend to be the pro-immigration party anymore.”

 

For the US Congress, a six-month countdown that Trump has put on the Dreamers' fate may actually work in their favor, said Molly Reynolds, a congressional analyst with Brookings Institution. “It often takes a deadline, especially one with serious consequences for any inaction, to force Congress’s hand to act.”

 

Congress could concededly come up with a deal that could satisfy the two Republican parties.  This is per Ms. Jessica Vaughan, the Director of Policy Studies for the conservative Center for Immigration Studies.  Congress could give amnesty for DACA recipients in exchange for their cutting back legal immigration and for stricter border enforcement.  “I do think Congress can do this if they try,” she said in an email  “There are already several bills they could draw on to put together a compromise that would accomplish all of these objectives, and they have a mandate from voters, who clearly back the Trump approach to immigration policy.”

 

But the policy wonk, Nowrasteh is highly cautious about trying to put these “deals” together.  These could complicate the Dreamer’s fates.

It is possible that Trump supporters would also demand that money for his infamous “border wall” must be part of the package.  That Wall has become such a symbol of the president himself that Democrats have continued to promise to block any bill that offers even a dime for it.

 

“It's got to be a straight up-or-down vote: 'Do you want dreamers here?  That would pass,” Nowrasteh has stated.

But will that vote actually happen?  Right now, it is highly unlikely.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017