Trump's DACA Betrayal

Trump’s DACA Betrayal Commentary by Sanford D. Horn January 29, 2018 A week following President Donald Trump trumping Senator Chuck Schumer’s Shutdown, the President is behaving as if he not only lost, but is being held hostage on the DACA debacle. On the eve of Trump’s first State of the Union address, I feel betrayed. And judging from the collective outrage, I am not alone. For all the early promises kept in his first year in office, and for his historic notoriety as being the champion deal maker, President Trump seems to have skipped negotiation and compromise and gone straight to surrender on DACA. His current, on the table proposal would grant complete, total amnesty and an ultimate path to citizenship to 1.8 million illegals - more than double the estimated 800,000 DACA participants. That’s more than proposed under Barack Obama’s heinous plan when he drew up the Executive Order that was never law in the first place. My own needle moved from the far right position of deport anyone in the United States illegally - period, to what I wrote in my January 12, “DACA is a Dilemma” column: http://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2018/01/daca-is-dilemma.html. Simply put, granting legal status, while not citizenship or the right to vote, is the same status as a permanent resident who came to this country legally. People here illegally should not have more rights than those who arrived here legally - even if those people, the DACA people, had no choice in the decision made that brought them to the US in the first place. Including the people who made the conscious choice to enter this country illegally on the path to citizenship with their, then minor children, is as bad an amnesty as that which was granted in 1986 that legalized more than three million interlopers in an effort to squelch the perpetual run of illegals flooding into the US. The four-pronged plan does not end with granting a path to citizenship, even a 10 year path, for 1.8 million illegals. There is the call for $25 billion to build the border wall - a dire necessity. Eliminating the visa lottery and ending chain migration are also part of the plan, but to what end? Where is the use of e-verify? Yes, the three “sticks” are vital parts of the plan, but the giant “carrot” not just legalizing, but granting citizenship to more than double the DACA numbers is simply unacceptable - even at the cost of not supporting the bill in its entirety. It is tantamount to total capitulation with the Democrats. To the Democrats calling the $25 billion for the wall a “ransom,” they are hypocrites as they themselves held the whole country hostage in mid-January by voting en masse against the budget bill because it did not include DACA provisions. The Democrats would rather protect illegals than the American military and citizenry. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called for including the best of the best as part of the American fabric, calling for strong vetting of the 1.8 million - how that becomes reality remains to be seen. Sessions also said that there will be deportations of DACA people who are criminals, “gang members, drunk drivers, and fraudsters.” What is the likelihood those miscreants will emerge from the shadows, admit their crimes and face deportation? Republicans supporting this new plan are even worse than the Democrats. While I have never been a one-issue voter in the past, I simply cannot vote for a House or Senate member willing to grant citizenship to criminals as an expedient manner of gaining the wall or the other “sticks.” Thinking this so-called immigration reform bill will stem the tide of illegals entering the United States? Think again. Foreigners wanting to come to the US, risking imprisonment, deportation, or their very lives, will work tirelessly to achieve their goal. More illegals will arrive, and perhaps another 32 years will pass before the next amnesty. Insanity - doing the same thing over and over again, expecting changes. Call your House members and your Senators. Remind them, politely, they work for you, and you oppose this pitiful excuse for compromise. The phone number for the Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121. They won’t get my vote. Will they get yours? Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.