California Democrats ask Obama to pardon nearly 750,000 'Dreamers,' but White House s

http://www.latimes.com/politics/esse...htmlstory.html

Looks like the white house is not going forward with the idea of a pardon, but hopefully Obama reply's with his own idea to protect his DACA program.


The members of Congress who persuaded President Obama to grant temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought into the country illegally as children are now asking him to protect those immigrants from being deported under President-elect Donald Trump.

The White House, however, promptly responded tepidly to the idea.

Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey) and Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) sent a letter to Obama on Thursday asking him to use his pardon authority to forgive the past and future civil immigration offenses of the nearly 750,000 people granted legal status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

That would keep those people from being deported, but would leave them in legal limbo without work permits or visas. However, without an immigration offense on their records, they could more easily apply for legal status.

"They wouldn't have a piece of paper, they wouldn't have work authorization, but they wouldn't have to be living in fear every moment of their lives about deportation," Lofgren said after a news conference about the letter.

Lofgren, a former immigration attorney, said the pardons would probably be applied to the civil offenses related to entering and remaining in the country without authorization.

But a White House official signaled late Thursday that the administration was not considering a pardon for the so-called Dreamers because it does not believe a pardon would grant them legal status.

"We note that the clemency power could not give legal status to any undocumented individual. As we have repeatedly said for years, only Congress can create legal status for undocumented individuals," an administration official said.

After efforts to address immigration stalled in Congress, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pressured Obama to act alone to protect certain immigrants brought into the country illegally when they were children. He used an executive order to create the DACA program.

The Dreamers, one in three of whom are estimated to live in California, gave the Department of Homeland Security their fingerprints, home addresses and other information to undergo background checks that allowed them to get temporary legal status under DACA.

Advocates and the administration emphasized at the time that providing the information would give them legal status and was worth the risk. But with Trump vowing to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally and expected to let the DACA program end, Dreamers are worried the information they provided will be used to deport them.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), whose husband is an immigration attorney, said at the news conference that she's getting a flood of messages from frightened Dreamers. On Tuesday she sent a letter to Obama asking him to keep their information from the Trump administration.

"We promised these recipients security, and now they are facing a nightmare," she said.

Roybal-Allard said those who pushed Obama to create the program and persuaded people to come out of the shadows and register with the government are obligated to protect those who did.

"These are kids. We feel a sense of responsibility. We went out into our districts and we talked to the Dreamers, and they asked us, 'Is it really OK for us to do this?'" Roybal-Allard said. "And we said, 'No, don't worry, you need to come forward.' Now we are in a situation where all that we said, in fact, could possibly be reversed."

Although the president's pardon power is normally used for individual cases, there is some precedent for the chief executive to pardon a large group of people.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter pardoned half a million Vietnam War draft evaders, and at least seven other presidents have issued broad pardons.

Congress and the Supreme Court cannot undo a presidential pardon, nor can a new president.

Lofgren said that if Obama doesn't want to pardon the Dreamers, she hopes he'll respond with his own idea.

"These young people are not alone, they are not going to be abandoned by us," she said.

UPDATES:

2:15 p.m. This post was updated with the White House's response to the proposal.

This post was originally published at 11:30 a.m.

Wtf we aren't expecting legal status from the pardon, we need the protection it provides!! Ughhhhh...

This is not a good idea.

If they pardon us, it is going to bite us in the back later on.

Because it may rile up Trump's administration eh?

You could be right, I have been thinking about that possibility too.

Ok? Trumps been trying to bite if you havent seen his rhetoric.

What about eDACA/DAPA?

There is a better chance and is a risk I'm willing to take rather than going with a pardon.