Thread: On DACA, Trump shifts from dealing with Democrats to damning them

On DACA, Trump shifts from dealing with Democrats to damning them

by W. James Antle III
April 03, 2018 12:01 AM

President Trump's tweets Monday suggested he was washing his hands of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals debacle. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Trump is done dealing with the Democrats on immigration and is ready to fight them instead.

That was the message both of Trump’s tweets washing his hands of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — he blamed former President Barack Obama’s deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants for new “migrant caravans” approaching the United States and Democrats for the failure of the DACA talks — and the White House’s Monday announcement it was working with the Department of Homeland Security on a new legislative package aimed at closing immigration “loopholes.”

While Trump has turned on his Democratic negotiating partners before over the DACA stalemate, there was a sense of finality to Monday's moves.

But they were also a concession that Trump’s strategy of phasing out DACA over a six-month window had failed to get Democrats and pro-legalization Republicans to agree to his terms on border security and legal immigration reform. And the flurry of activity on this front comes after setbacks in getting Congress to fund the administration’s immigration enforcement priorities, even with Republican majorities in both houses.

“His tweet simply acknowledged reality — the Democrats (and too many Republicans) are willing to let the DACA [recipients’] work permits expire rather than approve even the tiniest reduction in future legal immigration to offset the amnesty,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “I think the White House overestimated Democrats' actual concern for the DACA [beneficiaries] — it shouldn't have been surprised, given how the Dems have been using the Dreamers as a marketing gimmick for a general amnesty/immigration surge since the Dream Act was first introduced in 2001.”

Now the Trump administration is going to shift focus to ending “catch and release,” among other practices the president describes as preventing border patrol agents from properly discharging their duties. “DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon… No longer works,” Trump tweeted. “Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation. Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!”

The White House amplified this message on Monday. "When Congress is debating a large grant of a generous immigration benefit, that tends to be a major pull factor for new people to come illegally," a senior administration official said on a conference call with reporters.

Even if new migrants would not be eligible for DACA because they did not arrive in the U.S. long enough ago, administration officials argued, legalization without appropriate countermeasures creates incentives for future illegal immigrants due to an expectation of future leniency.

Trump did get Democrats — and Republicans with a diverse set of immigration-policy views — to the bargaining table over immigration thanks to DACA. Trump paired a more-generous-than-expected legalization offer to a larger-than-anticipated number of Dreamers with changes to family-based immigration and an end to the diversity visa lottery.

Democrats rejected the proposal. Many immigration hawks, both in the House and among outside political groups, also protested that the legal status for Dreamers came before the changes reducing legal immigration would be phased in.

When the Supreme Court refused to expedite its review of a lower court ruling that Trump cannot end DACA, the March 5 deadline became moot, removing any incentive for either side to act ahead of the midterm elections.

“The president angered his base with a huge concession by proposing amnesty for 1.8 million illegal aliens currently [eligible for] the DACA program,” said Dale Wilcox, executive director of the Immigration Reform Law Institute. “That members of Congress from both parties rejected the offer simply because it included full border wall funding is revealing as to their position on border security. Open borders advocates are not likely to see an offer that generous from the White House again, nor do they deserve to get one.”


William Gheen of the hawkish Americans for Legal Immigration PAC went a step further. “The problem we have is that Trump's reversals and betrayals on his campaign promises has attracted a new surge on our borders and an unprecedented caravan of illegals heading our way,” Gheen said.


“You go out, you secure the border, you close these loopholes, and you stop talking about amnesty,” said RJ Hauman, government relations director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “Closing these loopholes is kind of a black and white thing, less toxic, hopefully the Democrats will be less maximalist in their positions.”

There are two big political risks for Trump. One is that his base voters could be demoralized by how little he has succeeded at moving the ball forward on immigration, for example getting just $1.6 billion for the border wall in the omnibus out of $25 billion requested. The second is that Democratic voters might be energized, motivated to vote because they are angry to see the Dreamers left in limbo and their party blamed for not rescuing DACA, which Trump chose to end.

“An overwhelming majority of voters want relief for the Dreamers,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “Trump's decision to stonewall DACA may not be a problem for him but it's a big hit to GOP prospects in November. Midterms are all about turnout, including Hispanics turning out for Dems. The sword hanging over the Dreamers might puncture Republican hopes for holding the House.”

At the same time, Trump is urging those who are angry about the status quo to focus their ire on the Democrats. While Trump is blaming the Democrats for both the legislative inaction on DACA and the current state of immigration law (“an Obama joke,” he tweeted Monday night), he is also implicitly challenging congressional Republicans to nuke the Senate filibuster and pass legislation.

When Trump has offered contradictory advice to congressional Republicans in the past, the result has usually been legislative failure. It would be harder to get something reflective of Trump’s immigration framework through a Democratic-controlled House. Trump has been conflicted on DACA since the campaign, vacillating between expressing sympathy for the program's beneficiaries to pledging to end it as one of Obama's "unconstitutional executive amnesties."

The only thing that could return a sense of urgency to immigration negotiations is if the Supreme Court allows Trump to proceed with terminating DACA.

“Once SCOTUS rules for the administration in ending DACA (as it will), then the whole thing will start again, and we'll see then if the Dems will be more willing to deal,” Krikorian said.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...o-damning-them

Trump said ‘DACA is dead,’ but he has approved 55,000 applications just this year

(More than 51,000 applications remained pending as of Saturday.)

Are they being "approved" because the court ruling and Trump has no choice?

Originally Posted by Beezer

Are they being "approved" because the court ruling and Trump has no choice?

Yes.

NEED TO PUSH IT TO THE SUPREME COURT TO TERMINATE DACA

LET WORK PERMITS EXPIRE

SAVE UP YOUR MONEY AND PREPARE TO GO BACK...THEY ARE NOT STAYING HERE!

GET OUT AND GET IN LINE!