The DACA Sellout: The ruling class outdoes themselves

Stephen Kershnar

DACA Amnesty: Are you kidding me?

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

December 10, 2017

            The Democrats have made Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty their top priority in recent Congressional negotiation over the budget despite its being irrelevant to the budget. The Republican establishment also wants DACA. The political class states that DACA is merely temporary relief for educated-and-promising children and teens whose parents brought them here without their consent. It argues that DACA is compassionate because DACA children would do poorly if returned home and yet they are good for the American people. DACA is a disgrace and shocking display of the ruling class’ priorities.

            DACA began as Barack Obama’s proposal to allow some people who came illegally as minors to stay here for two years with the chance for renewed permission after that. The policy forgave people who were younger than 31 years old on June 15, 2012.  In 2014, Obama expanded and implemented the plan via executive action. It currently amnesties roughly 800,000 people and another 500,000 are eligible. More than half the states then sued. In September, Donald Trump canceled the policy, but delayed acting on the cancellation for six months to give Congress time to act. Had Trump not canceled the policy, the courts would done so because Obama’s executive action was clearly unconstitutional.

             DACA is a disgrace in part because it rests on a bed of lies. First, the amnesty for DACA would be massive and not given to just DACA children and teens. The Department of Homeland security found that while the average immigrant brought in (sponsored) three family members, the average Mexican immigrant sponsored six family members. Forbes reports that 78% of the DACA beneficiaries are Mexican. Assuming that, on average, an immigrant brings in six family members, then, the amnesty would bring in 4.8 million people.

Some context is helpful here. DACA is above and beyond the more than one million immigrants a year the U.S. admits. It is also above and beyond the 84 million immigrants and their U.S. born children (27%) of the population who are already here (Migration Policy Institute). The ruling class has been flooding the country with people from the third world. DACA is just a part of this.   

            Far too many DACA immigrants are neither children nor teens and many are shockingly uneducated. Writing for The Daily Signal, Hans Von Spakovsky notes that the majority of DACA beneficiaries are adults. He further notes that fewer than half of DACA beneficiaries have a high school education despite the fact that the majority are adults. The Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota found that, perhaps, 24% are functionally illiterate and another 46% have only basic English ability. Similarly, the Migration Policy Institute found that in 2014 only 5% of the DACA beneficiaries had a college degree.

            The DACA beneficiaries will not meet many of the advertised eligibility requirements. For example, von Spakovsky reports, the Obama administration regularly waived the DACA education requirement. If the future is anything like the past, the government will waive and eventually drop many of the eligibility requirements for DACA-based amnesty.

   

             The presidential sleaziness surrounding DACA is a wonder to behold. Obama’s executive amnesty was blatantly illegal. A president cannot unilaterally change immigration law. Obama attempted to do by claiming that the executive branch has prosecutorial discretion. Like so many of Obama’s legal claims, this is childish. No one thinks that president Trump could in effect eliminate the capital gains tax by using prosecutorial discretion to make it clear that people who don’t pay the tax get off scot-free. Trump’s voters took seriously his promise to return DACA invaders. If he goes back on his promise, he is just another lying politician. His voters will notice.  

Also, Trump and his voters know well that every successive amnesty encourages millions more to sneak in.    

            The people sneaking in and their family members will be costly to taxpayers. Writing for the Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector and Jason Richwine note that the U.S. government gives a lot of money to poor people. Using 2010 numbers, they note that on average, households headed by people without a high school diploma receive $35,000 more in benefits each year than they pay in taxes. They further note that half of illegal-alien households are headed by someone without a high school degree and 25% have only a high school degree.  

The Democrats’ prioritizing DACA is incredible. Surely, Democratic politicians can find a priority that focuses on U.S. citizens. The might, for example, focus on overpriced and disastrous public schools, the sea of incarcerated Americans, or shoring up unsustainable entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Why do Democratic voters let themselves be such a low priority?   

American voters oppose amnesty. They rose up in outrage over the attempt to sneak amnesty in through the back door during the Bush II administration and elected Trump in large part to prevent further amnesties. They don’t think the country’s problems can be fixed by flooding the U.S. with tens of millions of poor-and-uneducated third world immigrants, especially from Central America. Why is it so hard for the American people to get what they want, especially given that they are in the right?

Also, why does the country have to draft so many low quality immigrants when other countries (for example Canada) select high quality ones by drafting for skill, education, or money? As Ann Coulter points out, the New England Patriots drafts the best players it can get. Cornell University admits the best students it can get. The U.S. should pick new citizens similar to how the Patriots and Cornell choose. The country loses out when the country admits DACA beneficiaries rather than the best and brightest immigrants China, India, and Turkey have to offer. 

  

The DACA amnesty is based on lies. It rewards Obama’s law-breaking and Trump’s promise-breaking. It harms American people and they don’t want it. The ruling class really outdid themselves on this one.