Who Gains the Upper Hand from Judge's DACA Reinstatement Order?
Who Gains the Upper Hand from Judge's DACA Reinstatement Order?
Dan Cadman on January 14, 2018
Many readers are already aware that William Alsup, a sitting federal district court judge with progressive activist proclivities, has issued an order not only blocking the Trump administration's phase-out of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — a misnomer if ever there was one — but actually going so far as to demand that the administration once again begin accepting applications.
It should be no surprise that this judge's federal court district sits within the San Francisco Autonomous Region, which is in turn part of the People's Democratic Republic of California, both of which only purport to remain an integral part of the United States of America. And then only when federal funds and manpower are at risk — you know, for collapsing dams, rampaging multiple wildfires and the like, and even, mind you, for the cost of incarcerating alien criminals who are then released back to the streets to reoffend until they're picked up again and the incarceration-money cycle begins anew (quite a scam if you can swing it and are indifferent to the repeated victimization of members of your community).
I'll leave others to speak to the absurdity and legal vagaries of this judge's decision, as Josh Blackman already has done superbly in an article at National Review Online. The article is well worth the read.
There's no doubt that the administration will vigorously contest this decision, probably having to slog through an equally outrageous decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (see here and here) before the matter lands at the Supreme Court — unless the Solicitor General's office can convince the Supremes to entertain an interlocutory appeal to stay Judge Alsup's deliberately obstructionist decision until the merits are decided at a later hearing.
But here is the most absurd part: Some pundits claim that the judge's decision actually gives Democrats the edge in dealing with Republicans over whether and how to grant amnesty relief to so-called "Dreamers", which is an expanded pool of illegal aliens that actually reaches beyond the parameters of those given DACA status:
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who filed one of the cases, welcomed the ruling and said he thinks it actually strengthens the position of lawmakers seeking to protect the so-called Dreamers in the face of pressure from Trump to offer concessions on funding for the border wall, limits on legal immigration and more.
"Why would anyone want to negotiate a bad deal to get DACA now that it's become clear the court is saying the Trump administration may have tried to repeal the program in an unlawful way?"
Becerra is a former Democratic member of Congress from California's 34th District, and presumably a fairly smart guy.
But try as I might, I can't see any way in this universe that his thinking holds true. As Blackman points out, this judge's track record on having his adverse decisions of Trump White House immigration actions sustained by higher courts is poor.
More cogently, it's almost certainly the steadfastly pro-immigration enforcement Republicans who are the happy beneficiaries of Alsup's decision.
They know it's likely to be rescinded up the road, but for the moment Alsup has relieved the pressure that they felt from the White House and congressional leaders in both chambers to knuckle under to a potentially catastrophic immigration bill that, as usual, had a heapin' helpin' of amnesty, with only insubstantial and shadowy commitments to border and interior enforcement to offset it— and quite probably no changes to the dangerous visa lottery or out-of-control chain migration that are symptomatic of the deeply flawed legal immigration system.
All of that now goes away.
https://cis.org/Cadman/Who-Gains-Upp...paign=addtoany
