DACA

DACA is shaping up to be like the Spanish-American War tax or Jim Geraghty’s USDA Agency of Invasive Species — an almost unkillable absurdity.

Since the first days of this administration, I’ve been trying to hold the president to his unequivocal promise to terminate the unlawful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program “on Day One.” The White House was afraid to follow through, but eventually, on Day 228, DHS rescinded (with a wind-down period) the Obama-era memo that granted work permits to roughly three-quarters of a million illegal immigrants who came here before age 16.

What no one anticipated at the time were the lengths to which our lawless courts would go to keep DACA in place; my colleague Andrew Arthur includes a DACA timeline in a piece today. The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 last month (guess who was number five) that DACA — a program pulled out of thin air, with no basis in statute or regulation — could only be rescinded by jumping through the hoops of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which is supposed to be for promulgating and changing formal regulations, not ephemeral (not to mention illegal) policy directives.

This week, the administration finally responded to the absurd SCOTUS ruling with a plan for coming up with a rescission order that won’t give John Roberts any pretext for continuing to delay the termination of the program. In the meantime, the new DHS directive allows DACA to continue, though with no new applications, with a renewable duration of only one year from the current two years, and ending the practice of granting “advance parole” to DACAs (which facilitates the conversion of DACA’s amnesty-lite to the amnesty-premium of a green card). In addition, DHS has proposed charging a fee for DACA renewals; currently there is no fee for DACA itself, only for the work permit and fingerprinting. This would raise the total cost of renewing DACA from $495 to $765 (which is still only about half of what it actually costs to process the package of DACA applications, meaning the rest is poached from fees paid by legal immigrants).

Some immigration hawks were disappointed that DHS isn’t just pulling the plug on DACA immediately. The Heritage Foundation, for instance, said that “conservatives are right to be disappointed that DACA continues to live on.” But as the OG Squeaky Wheel for ending DACA, I actually think the administration is approaching this the only way it can. Since any new rescission order will receive a judicial colonoscopy, DHS needs to make sure to polish its every emanation and penumbra. None of that should be necessary for the simple rescission of a memo, but that’s the hand that’s been dealt.9

House Speaker Paul Ryan will push his open borders agenda during his last months in Congress, telling the media that he is interested in passing an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Ryan announced this week that he will leave Congress after his current term is up, but now he says he will continue pushing for a DACA amnesty despite his exit.

Any DACA amnesty must come with safeguards to prevent another wave of illegal immigration, i.e. and an end to Chain Migration and mandatory E-Verify for all employers.

Illegal immigrant Dreamers said they have been betrayed by Democratic leaders who failed to force a government shutdown showdown this week over demands to pass a legalization bill by the end of the year.

Congressional leaders signaled Wednesday that they will revisit the immigration issue early next year and vowed to complete legislation in January.

That wasn’t cutting it for Dreamers, who had set a year-end deadline and then watched in dismay as Democrats stumbled to deliver on it.

Hundreds of Dreamers, some risking arrest, took to the hallways in Congress to march and conduct lie-downs in office corridors to complain that they have been forgotten.

“We want Dream Act,” protesters chanted. They were referring to a bill that would grant tentative legal status to more than 2 million illegal immigrants and allow 1.7 million of them to earn green cards signifying permanent legal presence, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

The U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 Thursday over a challenge to President Obama's immigration policy, a result that prevents the administration from putting the program into effect during the rest of his term.

The split was reflected in a one sentence statement from the court: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court."

Announced in late 2014, it would shield more than four million people — mostly Latinos — from deportation. But lower courts blocked its implementation after Texas and 25 other states sued, claiming the president had no power to order the changes.

The ruling deals a blow to a White House which has used executive actions to push forward immigration reform in the wake of congressional inaction and President Barack Obama who has sought to rewrite a legacy that had some inLatino activist circles calling him "the deporter-in-chief."

There have been more than 2 million deportations in Obama's tenure.

The president on Thursday stressed that people who have been in the country for a long time and are otherwise law abiding will remain lower deportation priorities.

He said the tie was "heartbreaking" for millions of immigrants.