( Editor’s note: While Don is out of the office, please enjoy this guest editorial. )
President Donald Trump must do primary the job of the executive under Article II of the Constitution — enforce the law. With increased pressure from the courts surrounding Trump’s immigration plans, he truly only has one option, enforce the law to the best of his ability to get unsafe, illegal immigrants off the streets. The Supreme Court is fumbling over how to handle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but that does not mean violent former recipients of the program need to be kept in the country.
On Monday, the Supreme Court denied a request from President Trump to hear a case surrounding DACA before an appellate court has heard the case, in hopes of receiving a ruling on the program before it is set to expire in March. By refusing to listen to the case early, the Supreme Court upholds an earlier decision which keeps the program open until litigation concludes, temporarily preventing Trump from ending the program.
The program, created by President Obama in 2012, provided legal status to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors and those of parents with U.S.-born children in a sister program. Despite the President having no authority to grant amnesty to millions of immigrants violating Congressional law, Obama implemented this system and gave these “dreamers” a new sense of false hope.
The unconstitutionality of this law was confirmed when President Obama attempted to implement a second program entitled Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) which protected illegal immigrants that came into the country as adults and had children.
The Fifth Circuit Court immediately ruled DAPA as unconstitutional and noted that Obama’s decision to simply not enforce the law by deporting these illegal immigrants “does not transform presence deemed unlawful by Congress into lawful presence and confer eligibility for otherwise unavailable benefits.”
The Supreme Court chose not to hear the case and upheld the lower court’s ruling that the President had no authority to override the laws of Congress. With DACA facing similar legal challenges, President Trump elected to wind down the program and called upon Congress to enact legislation protecting the DACA recipients that deserve protection.
As Attorney General Jeff Sessions explained in a Sept. 2017 press release, “The executive branch, through DACA, deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions. Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch…If we were to keep the Obama Administration’s executive amnesty policy, the likeliest outcome is that it would be enjoined just as was DAPA…Congress should carefully and thoughtfully pursue the types of reforms that are right for the American people.”
As a result, DACA has become a centerpiece of the immigration reform debate. But while Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi call these DACA recipients “innocent young people in communities across America,” she paints a wildly inaccurate picture of the group she is protecting.
The Washington Times’s Stephen Dinan reported on Jan. 2018, Border Patrol agents in San Diego arrested two illegal immigrant “dreamers” for their roles in separate smuggling operations. This has been a common trend, Dinan also reports on a Texas highway checkpoint which arrested several more dreamers in smuggling operations last year. These are only some of the cases which led to some 2,139 dreamers having their DACA status revoked as of this summer.
In his September statement, Sessions also noted, “The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences. It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.”
Inevitably, with the promise of amnesty given to millions of young people, security cannot be maintained.
Most recently, Frank Miles of Fox News has reported, just days after the shooting of 17 students in Parkland, Florida, a 21 year old DACA recipient, Abigail Hernandez, posted to the East High School Facebook page, “I’m coming tomorrow morning and I’m going to shoot all ya b—–es”.
Police found a shotgun in her home during the arrest.
Not only was Hernandez living in the country under the protection of the DACA program, but the city where she resides, Rochester, N.Y., is considered a sanctuary city, so Hernandez will likely not be deported.
Despite DACA being held up in courts, this is where Trump can act now to protect the American people. For those who violate the terms of the DACA program, having been arrested for a felony offense, nothing is preventing President Trump from enforcing the law and deporting these individuals. Dare the left to challenge that in court.
President Trump must show the American people that not all DACA recipients are the “innocent young people” and “dreamers” that the left describes. The dangerous, violent illegal immigrants residing in this country, often protected by their local municipalities must be deported.
President Obama may have attempted to usurp congressional authority by enacting DACA and DAPA, but now President Trump must restore the rule of law and the separation of powers. By deporting illegal immigrants who have broken the laws of this country while living under Obama’s protective veil, Trump will send the strong message that the President will always do the executive’s one true job: enforce the law.
Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.
