-
Trump Wrestles with Obama’s Amnesty for DREAMers
Posted By Jim Stinson On February 21, 2017
President Donald Trump is walking a fine line between fulfilling key campaign promises and confronting the optics of deporting children.
At his first solo press conference Thursday, the president displayed serious hesitation with the prospect of deporting the children of illegal immigrants — despite a repeated, iron-clad campaign pledge to end President Obama’s executive amnesties.
Immigration today, if you listen to the Left, equals anybody who wants to come into the country should be allowed. That’s not what immigration is. That’s illegal immigration.
Trump also realizes the danger of letting down some of his most vocal supporters and immigration hawks, the people who swept him into office and helped him win two Rust Belt states not won by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Trump’s aides are working on plans to end a controversial amnesty program for illegal immigrants, brought here as children, without getting the same backlash as Trump’s controversial “travel ban.”
Trump is aware his supporters are impatient to see the two Obama-era amnesties ended. Trump was asked about his next immigration plans at Thursday’s conference. The reporter added she was curious about any coming actions on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an executive order imposed by Obama in June 2012.
The program allows illegal immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive a two-year period of deferred action from deportation, as well as eligibility for a work permit. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, recipients of this DACA amnesty have to be under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, and had to have come to the United States before reaching his or her 16th birthday. There are a number of other guidelines for these recipients, known popularly as “Dreamers.”
The potentially heavy political cost of deporting illegal immigrants who grew up in the United States through no fault of their own appears to weigh heavily on Trump.
“We’re going to show great heart,” Trump told reporters. “DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you. To me, it’s one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids.
In many cases, not in all cases. And some of the cases, having DACA and they’re gang members and they’re drug dealers too. But you have some absolutely, incredible kids, I would say mostly. They were brought here in such a way — it’s a very — it’s a very, very tough subject.”
While Trump is seen as having rushed through too soon a draft of an executive order on accepting refugees and visitors from seven troubled nations in Africa and the Middle East, he is showing mysterious caution on Obama’s two executive amnesties. (A second program, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents — or DAPA — has been frozen in court for almost two years, after states sued to block the order.)
The delay in repealing DACA and DAPA has caught the attention of some of Trump’s top supporters, people who have been waiting for decades for a president who wanted to crack down on illegal immigration.
On Jan. 23, only days after Trump was sworn in, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies wrote in a blog post that he was curious as to why Trump had not simply waved his pen, and revoked the DACA and DAPA programs, which are opposed by immigration watchdogs.
“I did not expect was for Trump to break an explicit promise regarding his headline issue on the administration’s first business day in office,” Krikorian wrote. “But that may be what’s happened.”
It’s now clear Trump’s White House are nervous about appearing heartless.
“We’re gonna deal with DACA with heart,” Trump told reporters. “But the DACA situation is a very, very — it’s a very difficult thing for me because you know, I love these kids, I love kids, I have kids and grandkids . . . But we can tailor the order to that decision and get just about everything, in some ways, more. But we’re tailoring it now to the decision, we have some of the best lawyers in the country working on it.”
Krikorian noted that Trump was explicit in denouncing Trump’s amnesties on the 2016 campaign trail.
“We will immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties, in which he defied federal law and the constitution to give amnesty to approximately 5 million illegal immigrants,” Trump said in Phoenix last year.
Trump’s aides have drafted the order to repeal DACA, but it remains idle on the Oval Office desk, according to the Los Angeles Times. The other options to kill DACA, without involving Trump, would be a lawsuit brought by states, or new legal guidance that details who is a priority for deportation, according to the Times.
Since DACA took effect, there are about 750,000 people who got work permits through DACA. About 800 people are signing up for every day, according to Krikorian.
Meanwhile, Trump’s top supporters are still talking about the issue of illegal immigration, more than four weeks after he took office, indicating the still-red-hot nature of the issue.
“We’ve even lost the definition of ‘immigration,”’ said Rush Limbaugh, speaking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. “Immigration today, if you listen to the Left, equals anybody who wants to come into the country should be allowed. That’s not what immigration is. That’s illegal immigration. And we ought to all oppose it.”
URL to article: https://www.lifezette.com/polizette/...-for-dreamers/
-
-
-
Trump’s Immigration Guidance: Dreamers and Parents of U.S. Citizens Are Safe for Now; Most Others Must Go
February 21, 2017
(CNSNews.com) - Homeland Security Secretary Gen. John Kelly on Tuesday released two memoranda, explaining how the Trump administration plans to implement the president's executive orders designed to “stem illegal immigration” and remove illegal aliens “who have no lawful basis to enter or remain in the United States.”
Notably, the new guidance exempts, for the time being, the 750,000 “dreamers” who came to this country as children and who received temporary legal status under President Obama Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
In fact, Kelly rescinded all previous immigration directives and guidance -- except for Obama's 2012 DACA guidance dealing with individuals who came to the U.S. as children; and the 2014 memo dealing with certain individuals who are the parents of U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
The first memo [1] implements President Trump’s executive order on "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements."
In this document, Secretary Kelly directs the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to “immediately being the process of hiring 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents” as well as 500 Air & Marine Agents/Officers. (The second memo directs Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “expeditiously” hire 10,000 officers and agents.)
In another manpower boost, DHS is expanding the 287(g) program. This program allows DHS to authorize qualified law enforcement officers to “perform the functions of an immigration officer” when encountering illegal aliens. (The memo notes that from January 2006 through September 2015, the 287(g) Program led to the identification of more than 402,000 removable aliens, primarily through encounters at local jails.)
The policy memo also:
-- Commissions an “immediate, comprehensive” study of border security.
-- Directs CBP and other relevant agencies to “immediately begin planning, design, construction and maintenance of a wall, including the attendant lighting, technology (including sensors), as well as patrol and access roads, along the land border with Mexico in accordance with existing law,” and “in the most appropriate locations.” (The memo says the wall construction must use “materials originating in the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law.”)
-- Expands expedited removal of aliens apprehended at the border, who have been ordered removed from the United States.
-- Orders the detention of aliens apprehended at the border, pending their removal hearings. “Accordingly, the Director of ICE and the Commissioner of CBP should take all necessary action and allocate all available resources to expand their detention capabilities and capacities at or near the border with Mexico to the greatest extent practicable.”
-- Requires immigration and border agencies to develop “uniform written guidance and training for all employees and contractors” that process unaccompanied alien children, including the timely and fair adjudication of their claims, and – if appropriate -- their safe repatriation at the conclusion of removal proceedings.
-- Prioritizes criminal prosecutions for organized criminal activity in the border region.
-- Requires transparent, public reporting of border apprehensions data, including: the number of convicted criminals and the nature of their offenses; the prevalence of gang members and prior immigration violators; the custody status of aliens and, if released, the reason for release and location of that release; and the number of aliens ordered removed and those aliens physically removed.
The second memo [2] deals with "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States.”
DHS personnel are directed to prioritize removable aliens who: (1) have been convicted of any criminal offense; (2) have been charged with any criminal offense that has not been resolved; (3) have committed acts which constitute a chargeable criminal offense; ( 4) have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter before a governmental agency; (5) have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits; (6) are subject to a final order of removal but have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States; or (7) in the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.”
Noting that “criminal aliens routinely victimize Americans and other legal residents,” DHS is establishing a “Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office within ICE, to provide crime victims’ families “information about the offender, including the offender's immigration status and custody status.”
This memorandum also sets up programs to collect civil fines and penalties “from aliens and from those who facilitate their unlawful presence in the United States.”
And DHS “will no longer afford Privacy Act rights and protections to persons who are neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents.”
-
Keep your promise, Mr. President, end DACA now!
-
Setting priorities is understandable as the Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, stated today during his Press Conference. The administration wants to go after certain illegal aliens in particular, citing the criminals as a priority. All illegal aliens are subject to deportation they are saying but for now dreamers as a group are safe. The "big heart" of President Trump was spoken about by Sean Spicer.
Ending DACA would be keeping a promise. Keeping it in place is not.
-
White House Correspondent for The Hill.
Jordan Fabian @Jordanfabian
.@PressSec tells me DACA NOT a settled matter, even though DHS guidelines do not touch it. Trump could eliminate it at later date (or keep)
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jordanfabian
-
-
They are safe, but by their clean criminal record...no DUI, stealing goods, etc.
-
