Showing posts with label DACA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DACA. Show all posts

Friday, February 16, 2018

Congress critters blow it again

70% or more of the country wants to do something good for the DACA people.  Our Congress critters, Senate breed, were unable to pass anything today.  The Republicans lacked the votes to pass their bill, the democrats lacked the votes to pass theirs.  Neither side had the brains or the guts to find a compromise that both sides could vote for.  And so, the DACA people may all get deported beginning next month. 
Way to go Congress critters. 

Monday, February 12, 2018

What's going down in Congress about the Dreamers?

The Senate voted to discuss the matter.  Typical Senate malarky, you don't vote to have a discussion.  You bring a bill to the floor and discuss it.  Then you vote to pass it or kill it.
Far as I can see, the Republican position, as outlined by the president is this.  We do something nice (unspecified) for maybe 1.8 million DACA eligibles.  We fund the border wall.  We limit chain migration to immediate family, spouses and minor children.  We shut down the 50,000 person "diversity lottery".  We do all of this or nothing.
The Democratic position is murky.  They don't talk about it.  At a guess, they want nice things for at least the 800,000 people who signed up for DACA.  Maybe they are OK with the border wall.  They want to keep chain migration and the "diversity lottery" the way it is now.  They haven't really said all this out loud, but from listening to the TV newsies, I think this is where they are coming from.  I might be wrong.  The democrats would do them selves a favor by a  clear statement of where they are coming from.
  The Republicans have some internal problems.  An unknown number of Republican congress critters don't like the idea of letting anyone into the country and are against doing anything nice for 1.8 million DACA eligibles.  The president ought to be able to get enough Republicans to vote his way, but you never know.  The rest of the presidents ideas, border wall, chain migration and diversity lottery ought to OK with most Republican congress critters.
   Neither side has described just what nice things for DACA eligibles might be.  Was it up to me, I'd offer citizenship anyone who looks like a good, loyal, production citizen.  Say a clean criminal record (no felony convictions) graduated high school or college, married, employed, children, veteran or some subset of these.  Anyone who looks like trouble, gang members, drug runners, car jackers,  and such, deport them ASAP.  Short of citizenship we offer them ID cards that allow them to stay in the US, take a job, get a driver's license.  For extra niceness we could make them eligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid.
   The 800,000 vs 1.8 million comes from DACA eligibles fearing that going and registering with Mr. Migra was dangerous.  Mr. Migra might betray them and use the registration to hunt them down and deport them.  Which may happen unless Congress gets its act together in the next three weeks.  The administration estimates that about another million DACA eligibles were smart enough to keep their heads down and stay out of sight. 

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

DACA is an Obama executive order to the immigration folks to ease off deportment of young illegal aliens who were brought into the US by their parents when they were small children.  The Wall St Journal runs two letters to the editor today, one advocating that president Trump continue the policy, and one advocating ending it. 
   Cool and all.  But isn't this a matter for Congress?  Someone ought to submit a bill to Congress to make DACA the law of the land.  I'd expect it to have a good chance of passage.  And then the argument would be over.