![\"800px-US-border-notice\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2015\/02\/800px-US-border-notice.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s review DREAM Act history, shall we?<\/p>\n
(And, by the way, I reject the terminology that calls these teens and young adults \u201cDreamers\u201d because it\u2019s so loaded and propagandistic. \u00a0The journalists tend to say, \u201cthey\u2019re called Dreamers because of the bill that would have given them legal residency.\u201d \u00a0But the bill itself was given that name, one of those appalling acronyms invented by creating goofy bill titles that had the sole purpose of creating an acronym, in order to call these individuals \u201cDreamers,\u201d not the reverse. \u00a0Why don\u2019t we call them Dacans, instead?)<\/p>\n
Back in 2009 \u2013 2010, Democrats had a supermajority.<\/p>\n
They had a DREAM Act, providing residency for individuals brought to the U.S. as minors.<\/p>\n
They could have passed it.<\/p>\n
But they lost their chance.<\/p>\n
The act was introduced in 2009<\/a>, but didn\u2019t come up for a vote until December 2010, in the lame-duck session before Democrats in the House handed over control to the GOP, when it was unable to move past a filibuster<\/a>\u00a0in the Senate, despite Democrats and allied Republicans having a 61 vote majority, because Democrats Max Baucus, Kay Hagen, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, and Jon Tester voting against it.<\/p>\n I had remembered the Democrats being unable to pass it because too many of them demanded the whole enchilada, but I can\u2019t find any indicator of that; perhaps this demand what what stalled the vote on the bill until the very last minute, perhaps they could have gotten those remaining votes if they\u2019d offered more concessions but were unwilling to. \u00a0I can\u2019t find any details any longer on the negotiating process.<\/p>\n In 2011, Obama demanded that Congress pass such a bill, then, in 2012, claiming justification by the fact that Congress was unwilling to do what he believed was their obligation, he declared the \u201cDREAM Act\u201d into existence, in the form of the \u201cDeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals\u201d (DACA) executive order.<\/p>\n And in 2017, \u201cDREAM Act\u201d supporters are acting as if it had passed, that is, as if what Obama did had at least the moral force of legislation, rather than being a temporary measure with no basis for continuation once the Obama administration left office.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Trump is, according to Politico<\/a>, poised to end DACA with a 6 month grace period. \u00a0And, in the meantime, Paul Ryan<\/a> and other enforcement-indifferent Republicans are announcing that Trump should wait, to give them time for a \u201clegislative fix.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, as it happens, there are even immigration hardliners who are willing to accept a legislative DACA program, so long as it is part of a larger bill. \u00a0Mark Krikorian proposes<\/a> that DACA be rolled up into a bill with the RAISE Act (reduces immigration, preferences skilled workers, and eliminates\u00a0green card eligibility for non-immediate family, such as adult siblings), the Davis-Oliver Act (strengthens enforcement), and mandatory E-Verify.<\/p>\n But, CNN reports, there are updated \u201cDREAM Act\u201d bills, such as one introduced by Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and Chuck Shumer, which is\u00a0more generous than the existing DACA, and contains no compromise enforcement provisions. (A summary is available on Durbin\u2019s website<\/a>; note that it seems to have dispensed with the need for \u201cDream\u201d to be an acronym for anything; it\u2019s just the \u201cDream Act.\u201d) According to the National Immigration Law Center<\/a>, a pro-amnesty group, and the bill summary, the bill is more generous than DACA or the original DREAM Act, in that it does not appear to have any date cut-off (that is, there is no requirement to have been brought into the U.S. before a given date; as far as I can see, future arrivals will also be eligible, so that it\u2019s an ongoing promise to give legal residency to anyone arriving as a minor \u2014 maybe the actual legislation restricts eligibility to those present as of the law\u2019s enactment?), it requires only 4 years of residency, individuals who arrived even at age 17 are eligible, they need only be in high school or a GED program to be initially eligible, and must have minimally worked 3 years afterwards, or be exempt due to the need to care for a child (that is, girls who get pregnant before ever having worked, need not\u00a0ever work to receive these benefits).<\/p>\n So are there enough Republicans willing to pass an unconditional \u201cDREAM Act\u201d for the Durbin plan to pass? \u00a0And if so, will Trump sign it into law?<\/p>\n In a way, this seems like\u00a0the 2017 equivalent to the sequester. \u00a0Trump is, if these reports are correct, setting a deadline. \u00a0In the same way as the sequester was supposed to produce unpleasant enough consequences to force Congress to produce a budget deal, the elimination of DACA should function as a deadline by which Congress must work out a legislative solution.<\/p>\n Is Trump, in doing so, doing something gravely immoral, hideously evil, as countless people on my twitter and facebook feeds are proclaiming? \u00a0All he\u2019s doing is saying, \u201cthe fate of these individuals is something that must be decided by the legislature,\u201d and giving them a deadline.<\/p>\n So what are the possible outcomes? \u00a0Here are potential scenarios:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Congress fails to act, because it\u2019s just incompetent and, frankly, would rather complain about the president than do anything. \u00a0(See: \u00a0ACA\/Obamacare.)<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Congress doesn\u2019t act because the majority are perfectly fine with current DACA-recipients losing their work permits and returning to the status quo of false IDs, under-the-table work, and half-hearted indifferent enforcement.<\/p>\n 3. Alternately, the majority in Congress are perfectly fine with DACA (or afraid of being called \u201cimmoral\u201d if not) so they pass a simple equivalent to the current program. \u00a0(Let\u2019s assume the expansiveness\u00a0of the Durbin bill makes it a nonstarter.)<\/p>\n 4. Or, enough in Congress are only willing to vote for legislative DACA if paired with some Democratic concessions on immigration, such as\u00a0a wider implementation of E-Verify.<\/p>\n 5. Or, Democrats refuse to make those concessions, demanding a \u201cclean bill\u201d and calling their opponents inhumane for placing any conditions on its passage \u2014 either because they genuinely are convinced\u00a0it\u2019s simply too monstrous to accept any restrictions, or whether they\u2019re OK with allowing it to fail, then treating its failure as a \u201cwin\u201d because it gives them the opportunity to case their opponents as fundamentally evil people.<\/p>\n So what do you think? \u00a0My money\u2019s on number three \u2013 Congress lining up to say, \u201cwell, we had to, because of the high school valedictorians and all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image from wikimedia commons.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let\u2019s review DREAM Act history, shall we? (And, by the way, I reject the terminology that calls these teens and young adults \u201cDreamers\u201d because it\u2019s so loaded and propagandistic. \u00a0The journalists tend to say, \u201cthey\u2019re called Dreamers because of the bill that would have given them legal residency.\u201d \u00a0But the bill itself was given that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":1382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[741,139,463],"class_list":["post-7282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dream-act","tag-illegal-immigrants","tag-illegal-immigration"],"yoast_head":"\n