{"id":7301,"date":"2017-09-06T08:02:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T14:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=7301"},"modified":"2017-09-06T08:02:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T14:02:52","slug":"dream-ing-isnt-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/09\/dream-ing-isnt-enough.html","title":{"rendered":"Why “Dream”-ing isn’t enough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"800px-US-border-notice\"<\/p>\n

I have just a few minutes before I have to start work, but I want to say a few more words on the whole business of \u2014 arrgh, I can\u2019t stand the propagandistic label \u201cDreamers\u201d, so let\u2019s say Unauthorized Minor-Arrived Residents, even though UMAR doesn\u2019t roll off the tongue very easily.<\/p>\n

First of all, these individuals have no legal right to stay here. \u00a0The whole premise of DACA was that these people are of a class that\u2019s a low enforcement priority, and that the government, when it makes that declaration of deferred deportation, can also hand out work visas. \u00a0The program did not promise anyone anything other than a two year period of deportation relief.<\/p>\n

Do they have a moral right to stay here? \u00a0Or, put another way, is it morally wrong for the government to deport them?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not a simple answer.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the government, in having failed, for years and years, to take any substantial\u00a0enforcement action against illegal immigration, enabled the current situation \u2014 of individuals who have lived here since childhood \u2014 to come to be. That\u2019s on them, and on all the voters who returned these men and women, who spoke words of welcome instead of providing for enforcement, to office.<\/p>\n

But on the other hand, it simply cannot be<\/em> that we establish the moral, if not legal, right of residence for anyone who arrives before reaching the age of majority. \u00a0If that is the case, that it is morally wrong to deport someone who arrived before age 18, then there\u2019s no reason why that should hold true only for those who came before 2007, is there? \u00a0If we establish that as a general principle, then we also establish as a general principle, open immigration, albeit with a second, informal track, in which living with false identification and forged proof of work authorization, is considered no more wrong than, say, driving 26 in a 25 mph zone: \u00a0sure, it\u2019s on the books, but it\u2019s not really<\/em> wrong, because you don\u2019t intend for anything bad to happen.<\/p>\n

That is the fundamental reason why \u201cDream Act\u201d opponents say that there has to be some increase in enforcement at the same time, because otherwise we\u2019re establishing the general principle of open immigration for minors; even if the specific law in question contains a limit, the rhetoric does not.<\/p>\n

If, on the other hand, the law providing amnesty also includes, say, a mandatory e-verify, or tracking and expulsion of visa overstays, or something similar, than at least we\u2019re moving a bit closer to expressing the notion that, purely out of generosity, we are giving these young adults the gift of legal residency.<\/p>\n

And the larger issue is that there are simply too many politicians and activists who simply see nothing wrong with illegal immigration, who truly do view it as simply an alternate pathway to entry into the United States. \u00a0Remember that Jeb Bush famously described it as an \u201cact of love<\/a>\u201d because these people were motivated by the desire to provide for their families, and Cardinal Cupich, shortly after arriving in Chicago,\u00a0praised illegal immigrants<\/a> for all the ways in which they are employed (under the table, or with false IDs, but I guess that doesn\u2019t matter) in the U.S., and spoke of legalization as a top priority. \u00a0We\u2019ve got Rahm Emanuel and Bill De Blasio and other mayors and governors touting their support of illegal immigrants, promoting local ID cards, working with banks to enable them to get mortgages, and so on.<\/p>\n

In their view, illegal immigration is simply a fact of life; if you\u2019re willing to live in the United States under conditions that are somewhat tenuous and require low-paying jobs, because the better-paid jobs require authentic work authorization and English-language fluency, then they assume that you have a \u201cgood reason\u201d in the form of dire poverty at home, so that we in the United States have an obligation to welcome you, and, somewhere along the way, after a certain number of years of paying your dues this way, you\u2019ll have\u00a0a moral, if not legal, right to stay.<\/p>\n

But consider the end result of such a de facto<\/em> immigration pathway: \u00a0as the wave of illegal immigrants who came following the Reagan amnesty age, they will not be eligible for any form of retirement benefit. \u00a0Three years ago (the only useful item in a google search), NBC News featured<\/a>\u00a0the plight of these individuals, who continue working well past what we consider \u201cretirement age\u201d and never expect to stop. \u00a0Perhaps their numbers are smaller than NBC paints, because the largest number go back to Mexico to retire with a house built from funds sent back there year after year; I don\u2019t know. \u00a0But accepting illegal immigration as the normal state of affairs means a future generation of retirees without resources, relying only on what they can earn or receive in support from family. \u00a0And, sure, proposals for amnesty would remedy this \u2014 but only with more government spending as these people become eligible for Social Security, SSI, food stamps, and so on.<\/p>\n

And \u2014 sorry, this is getting a big rambly \u2014 the answer that\u2019s touted is simply to provide amnesty a heck of a lot sooner in the process, or to achieve a \u201cone and done\u201d amnesty solely by increasing the numbers of immigrants admitted into the U.S. to such a degree that any would-be illegal simply arrives in the proposed legal pathway. \u00a0But this has it\u2019s own set of issues, given the massive\u00a0number of new immigrant spots we\u2019d need to provide one to everyone who wants to come.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not that easy.<\/p>\n

Readers, ramble along with me in the comments. \u00a0What do you think is to be done, in the long term?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image from wikimedia commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have just a few minutes before I have to start work, but I want to say a few more words on the whole business of \u2014 arrgh, I can\u2019t stand the propagandistic label \u201cDreamers\u201d, so let\u2019s say Unauthorized Minor-Arrived Residents, even though UMAR doesn\u2019t roll off the tongue very easily. First of all, these […]<\/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-7301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dream-act","tag-illegal-immigrants","tag-illegal-immigration"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy "Dream"-ing isn't enough<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have just a few minutes before I have to start work, but I want to say a few more words on the whole business of -- arrgh, I can't stand the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/09\/dream-ing-isnt-enough.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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