President Trump hasn’t exactly been known to follow accepted political paths.
He’s demanded Congress repeal Obamacare, and took his own party to task for failing to do that.
He’s reached out to the opposite party when he believes his own GOP is failing him, such as regarding the deal this week on the debt ceiling.
He’s shown no hesitation to call out federal judges who, he believes, are pursuing their own agenda in their decisions.
So it wasn’t expected that he would follow the traditional political paths regarding immigration, and this week he proved that by declaring that six months from now, Barack Obama’s amnesty program for 800,000 illegal aliens will end.
Trump pointed out even Obama admitted it was temporary and Congress needed to step up and make the decisions needed regarding immigration. His message simply said to Congress: The time is now.
But it’s created a startling reaction: Besides outbursts of approval from both ends of the political spectrum, there’s the beginning of the idea that ultimately immigration reform, the renovation of America’s border laws and practices so that they actually work, might be possible.
“If anyone could make a deal on comprehensive immigration reform and make it work nationally, it would be this president,” Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, told the Washington Times.
“I think he’s trying to set us up to get something done. Now the question is, what do we have to add to the DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] bill, to the ‘Dreamer’ bill that’s already pending that Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin have, to make it work on a bipartisan basis and sell it to the president,” King said.
The failing immigration practices long have been a source of headache for Americans. Twenty years or more ago there was an amnesty with the promise that enforcement would prevent further problems, and it didn’t.
Now there are millions of illegal aliens in the nation, some estimate tens of millions, and few hold realistically to the idea that they will ever leave.
The Trump administration’s call for a border wall would be a first step in the resolution, since it could stop the flow of border crossings that is keeping the problem a problem.
Which then would allow Congress to determine the proper method to deal with – possibly even making citizens of – those illegal aliens here now.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., agreed.
On MSNBC, he said, “I think he’s positioned us for a DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] solution and that’s something that neither President Bush nor President Obama were able to get major immigration reform to the Congress. President Trump, ironically, might be the first guy to do that. I think there’s all kinds of implications to what he did yesterday, but count me as one that thinks the upside is much greater than the downside.”
The president seemed to reach out to the progressives and leftists who for years have advocated a more or less open borders strategy, telling those who have benefitted from the temporary program shouldn’t worry.
“For all of those that are concerned about your statuts during the six-month period, you have nothing to worry about,” he said on social media.
His position has earned him the support of interests ranging from as far left as Nancy Pelosi, who said, “I am praying that the president really cares about the Dreamers, or knows that he should care about the Dreamers, and knows that we’re going to pass this bill,” to the opposite end of the spectrum.
Ammoland.com wrote his move “struck the perfect balance of law and order, American pragmatism, and compassion.”
“As a matter of law, the DACA policy is almost universally regarded as unconstitutional,” the commentary said. “The left would like us to believe there are only two choices; Ignore the Constitution and continue the DACA program, or end it, inflicting chaos, pain and uncertaintly upon more than half a millin human beings.”
Trump, the group said, “in a remarkable display of leadership,” “found a third option – one that returns responsibility for writing our nation’s immigration laws to Congress, while showing compassion for the Dreamers.”
According to Politico, House Speaker Paul Ryan believes Congress will fix the program during that six moths.
“My point was, give us time. Don’t do it immediately, because that would create chaos. But he did make the right decision in that President Obama was trying to write law as an executive. The Constitution doesn’t allow that. We believe there needs to be a solution here, clearly. … We’ve got a timeline, six months, now we’ve got to go find where the consensus is on how to come to it with a solution. And the six months gives us the kind of time we need.”
It was on Tuesday the president had Attorney General Jeff Sessions make the announcement.
He delivered a scalding rebuke to DACA in announcing that the Trump administration will phase out the program over the next six months.
Republicans generally applauded Tuesday’s announcement while some Democrats lambasted it as everything from “irresponsible” to “heartless” and “morally deficient.” Some, such as the CREDO social change network leader Murshed Zaheed and United Farm Workers Union president Arturo Rodriguez, went so far as to call Trump’s decision “white supremacist.”
Sessions had explained, “Societies where the rule of law is treasured are societies that tend to flourish and succeed. Societies where the rule of law is subject to political whims and personal biases tend to become societies afflicted by corruption, poverty and human suffering.”
He blasted Obama for abusing executive power to grant amnesty to thousands of illegals. By creating special rights and privileges for a select group of illegals, his policy only encouraged more families to cross the southern border illegally, Sessions said, so they could apply for the same protections for their children.
