Why it makes sense for Trump to keep Dreamers in America

President-elect Donald Trump campaigned strongly against illegal immigration, but it is the fate of President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that is one of his most anticipated early decisions.

DACA, a 2012 executive order, temporarily stayed the deportation of Dreamers — the undocumented immigrants who were unwittingly brought to the United States by their parents as minors — if they met certain criteria. To qualify for this deferred action, these individuals had to be free of any felony convictions or significant misdemeanors and enrolled in school, have graduated from high school or enlisted in the military.

While there were serious issues with the way Obama chose to execute and establish DACA — issues that Obama himself raised many times prior to disregarding his own position and choosing to overstep his constitutional authority — there are some very worthy points that Trump should take into consideration.


First and foremost, Trump should focus on the immigration issues Americans care about.
Indeed, these are the big-picture issues that he campaigned most strongly on: a secure border and assurances that undocumented immigrants who have committed violent crimes or pose threats to the safety and security of Americans are not allowed to stay in the country.

DACA beneficiaries are not threats to America, nor do they weaken our border security. They have been vetted and screened for potential criminal activity. As a country, we need to focus on the real problem areas of our broken immigration system. Repealing DACA, simply put, will not improve safety or security.

In fact, recent research found that DACA recipients have started their own businesses at twice the rate of the general American population and 46 percent of DACA recipients are currently in school. Of those, 83 percent are concurrently working and earning their education, and 70 percent are pursuing bachelor's degrees or higher.

DACA recipients are largely educated, productive and beneficial to the American economy.

On the flip side, deporting all DACA recipients would be extraordinarily costly. Setting aside the enormous costs of mass deportation itself — estimated by the politically conservative American Action Forum to be $420 billion — a back-of-the-napkin calculation regarding the deportation of Dreamers yields a $29 billion price tag and dramatically shrinks American economic output.

It would be counterproductive to force the deportation of these productive immigrants. By focusing on DACA rather than border security and violent crime, and relying solely on the executive branch rather than working with Congress, then Trump would set back the cause of meaningful immigration reform and a constitutional approach to lawmaking — the latter of which was a consistent and broad theme on the campaign trial that resonated strongly among Trump's electorate.

Trump has indicated support in the past for certain groups of undocumented immigrants whose only crime is violating immigration law. In 2012, he remarked that "you have people in this country for 20 years, they've done a great job, they've done wonderfully, they've gone to school, they've gotten good marks, they're productive; now we're supposed to send them out of the country. I don't believe in that."

He carried this theme again both in his post-election interview with "60 Minutes," and in in his recent interview with Time magazine, where he recognized the reality of what's at stake for Dreamers and hinted at a possible common-sense solution: "We're going to work something out. On a humanitarian basis, it's a very tough situation," he said.

Trump would be wise to work with Republicans in Congress to repeal and replace DACA with an initiative that focuses on removing bad actors from the country and allows intelligent, industrious and law-abiding immigrants to stay. By negotiating a deal with Congress that secures the border and constructively addresses the future flow of workers and DACA recipients, Trump would be putting his much-celebrated dealmaking skills to work.

Hammering out an agreement on the provisions broadly supported by the American public, such as truly securing the border and removing violent criminals from the country, will be a boost during the critical early days of the Trump presidency. Simply rescinding DACA without accompanying constructive solutions will be unnecessarily divisive or wholly uninspiring to those who voted for Trump with the understanding that he would reject business as usual in Washington.

Conservatives have spent eight years railing against Obama's practice of circumventing Congress and governing via executive fiat. Trump would do himself a service by rejecting that inclination, and instead treating Congress as a co-equal branch of the federal government that should be more recognized as such.

A great place for Trump to start working with Congress is delivering on his promises to increase border security and facilitate removal of those who have committed serious crimes, while ensuring that our young, educated and productive immigrants continue to contribute to our country.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...ers-in-america

I don't know about you guys, but getting anxious to know policy details about DACA's future. I mean I have been anxious since Mr. T , this wait just sucks.

Very anxious. Since being elected he hasn't confirmed affirmatively whether he will continue or disband the program. My guess is he won't do it right away anymore. He's probably going to try to get something passed which includes border security.

Side note. I think the lack of A list performers wanting to perform at his inaguration is killing him and he is probably trying to moderate his stances now. lol he's that type of person tbh

Yes. That is absolutely what I have noticed as well. As far as I see it, no news is good news. We will just give him the benefit of the doubt and wait till he takes office. The worse case scenario is he will just stop the program and make it into a run-off, basically let the current EADs continue and eventually expire. But the good news it seems is that there will be SOME SORT of action on it, to get the ball rolling if you will.

I know exactly what you mean. I feel my health deteriorating from all of the stress.

There's no need to stress out. What's going to happen will happen. I am absolutely relaxed. The worst that will happen is DACA will be ended but there is no way in hell he is going to "take EADs away." Forget that. Its just not going to happen and the community wouldn't let this happen that easily. Chill out.

I think the fear of uncertainty is what it is. Had Clinton won I don't really expect any type of immigration reform passing congress, but we would of securely held DACA.

Now with Trump, we are unsure if he will continue the program. Most likely, he will eventually end it. But, what happens after? Some of us have 2 years for something to happen. Others will be expiring through the rest of next year. The uncertainty is stressful.

Classic example of taking risk vs. being risk averse. Voting for Hillary would have been considered as being risk averse. You would be guaranteed DACA for the next 4, possibly 8 years but DEFINITELY no legal status/CIR for yourself (unless you marry) or your family or the other option was Trump, a case where you might be tossed out of the window mercilessly or potentially obtain legal status because the dude is definitely going to pass some sort of a bill. Frankly the former is just not feasible and simply unrealistic and that is why I am very optimistic. If anything, the immigrants who really should be worried are non-DACA individuals. DACA recipients are an ELITE group of individuals. You can also add the other older Dreamers who aged out to this elite group. Republicans love us also. Just ask McCain and Graham. Trump does as well. Our Golden years are ahead of us.

Yes, but after 8 years the demographics and voting patterns of millennials would be more in our favor.

Either way, I am optimistic because unlike Republicans, Democrats might try to work with Trump to get him his border security with a trade-off. That hopefully being some meaningful legal status for us at the very least.

Trump is such a equalizer. Republicans don't have a choice but to follow him since he is their main candidate/pres in office. Democrats don't have a choice but to compromise since he is the President again. This will make both parties to work with each other. Plus the honorable great defender against Immigration Reform Jeff Sessions won't be in Congress anymore to oppose CIR (Remember what he said recently: "We will discuss it when the time comes" responding to a question about DACA/immigration ) Trump is playing a good hand right now. He will look to be liberal on many issues and since his supporters may not like that he decided to bring on an incredibly radically conservative guy like Pence as his right hand man to make it seem like he is a conservative himself. Lets just hope Pence doesn't make inroads and start to influence the man.