Dreamers – Page 30 – immigrationcourtside.com

After 20 Years In The U.S., Denver Mother Of Three Faces Removal

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/an-immigrant-mother-in-denver-weighs-options-as-deportation-looms.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

JULIE TURKEWITZ reports in the NYT:

“DENVER — In the basement of a white stone church here on Tuesday night, Jeanette Vizguerra gathered up her three youngest children, slipped them into pajamas and asked herself perhaps the hardest question of her life.

Should she present herself to the immigration authorities Wednesday morning for a scheduled check-in, risking deportation?

Or should she stay in the church, one of the few places federal agents do not go, almost surely resigning herself to months or years trapped inside?

“Tonight, I have to think,” Ms. Vizguerra said. “Because I promised my children — and it was a promise — that it was going to be very difficult to remove me from this country. I have already fought so long to be here; now is not the time to give up.”

It has been a difficult week for Ms. Vizguerra, 45, one of millions of undocumented immigrants contending with an uncertain future in the Trump administration. After she was convicted several years ago of using fake documents, Ms. Vizguerra, who has spent 20 years working in the United States, was ordered out of the country. But she was granted at least five postponements of deportation, and in December, her lawyer, Hans Meyer, asked for another.

Nothing happened. She was due for a regular check-in at the local office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday, and as the day crept closer, Ms. Vizguerra realized the possibility that she could be whisked onto a plane and separated from her three American-born children: Zury, 6, Roberto, 10, and Luna, 12.”

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PWS

02/15/17

Reuters Exclusive Report — Dreamer Arrested By ICE In Seattle — Mistake Or New Policy?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-arrest-exclusiv-idUSKBN15T307

Daniel Levine and Kristina Cooke of Reuters San Francisco break this exclusive story:

“U.S. authorities have arrested an immigrant from Mexico who was brought to the United States illegally as a child and later given a work permit during the Obama administration in what could be the first detention of its kind under President Donald Trump.

Daniel Ramirez Medina, a 23-year-old with no criminal record, was taken into custody last week at his father’s home in Seattle by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The officers arrived at the home to arrest the man’s father, though court documents did no make clear the reason the father was taken into custody.

Ramirez, now in custody in Tacoma, Washington, was granted temporary permission to live and work legally in the United States under a program called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, established in 2012 by Democratic President Obama, according to a court filing.”

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As far as I know, the Administration has not made a final decision on whether or not to revoke, retain, or modify the Obama Administration’s DACA program. But, given the sloppiness with which this Administration has proceeded on immigration matters, who knows?

In any event, great reporting by Daniel and Kristina, and I appreciate their forwarding this to me.

PWS

02/14/17

Health: Fear Is Harmful To Your Health — Deportation Anxiety!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/10/living-in-fear-as-a-refugee-in-the-u-s-is-terrible-for-your-health/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.704d0ac8184d

From the Washington Post:

“The damage to the next generation may be compounded by other, less obvious assaults on their biology and psychology. Research by Rachel Yehuda and her colleagues at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York has demonstrated that the consequences of Holocaust survivors’ extreme trauma can be passed down to their children and grandchildren, making them exquisitely sensitive to the ordinary stresses of relatively safe lives. Yehuda and other researchers believe that these are “epigenetic” effects, modifications in the ways genes express themselves, which transmit vulnerabilities to stress from one generation to the next. Though the mechanisms are not completely understood, animal studies as well as those on human adults who were abused as children demonstrate similar changes.

“There is no short-term fix for this kind of damage,” Lori Kaplan commented sadly, thinking about the young people and their families who are anxiously calling her and her colleagues, reporting physical and emotional distress, looking for answers. “We’ve been dealing with the trauma of the immigrant experience for so long,” the flight from violence, the loneliness, the poverty, the struggle to survive in a strange land and the longing for home. “Obama was deporting people, sure, and there was anxiety, but he also gave us hope. And now the roof’s been blown off.”

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PWS

02/11/17

Increased “Raids” And Removals Likely To Be The “New Norm” Under Trump Enforcement Policies

http://www.ksbw.com/article/are-immigration-raids-result-of-trump-policy/8730502

The AP reports:

“Advocacy groups claim that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are rounding up people in large numbers around the country as part of stepped-up enforcement under President Donald Trump. They have cited immigration action in Southern California that they believe is especially heavy-handed.
The government says it’s simply enforcing the laws and conducting routine enforcement targeting immigrants in the country illegally with criminal records.

The truth lies somewhere in between. Here are some of the facts surrounding what’s happening with immigration enforcement:”

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Read the full story at the link. President Trump seems destined to “dethrone” President Obama as the “Deporter in Chief.”

PWS

02/10/17

The Sessions Era Begins At The USDOJ

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/02/09/jeff-sessions-is-now-the-attorney-general-here-are-the-four-biggest-things-to-fear/

Greg Sargent writes in The Morning Plum in today’s Washington Post:

“Jeff Sessions has now been confirmed as attorney general, and this vaults him to a position in American life that is unique. Perhaps more than any other person, Sessions stands at the nexus of many of the potential plot lines that we should fear most about the Donald Trump presidency.

Here are the possibilities we need to worry about. President Trump’s refusal to divest from his business holdings creates the possibility of untold conflicts of interest and even full-blown corruption on an unprecedented scale. The hostility of Trump and Republicans to a full, independent probe into Russian meddling in the election may mean there will never be a full public accounting of what happened, which could make a repeat more likely.
Trump’s year of lies about voter fraud, and his campaign vows of explicit persecution of minorities, could signal further voter suppression efforts, weakened civil rights protections, and the use of state power against Muslims and undocumented immigrants in draconian or discriminatory ways. Trump’s well-documented authoritarian impulses could conceivably tip him into genuine authoritarian rule, in which, for instance, the power of the state is turned against critics or political opponents.

Sessions is now in a unique position to facilitate and enable — or, by contrast, to act as a legal check on — some or all of these possibilities, should they metastasize (or metastasize further) into serious threats to vulnerable minorities or, more broadly, to our democracy. Here are the things to fear:

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You can read the full article at the link. Although noting Session’s involvement with immigration, Sargent overlooks what is likely to be AG Session’s biggest legacy, for better or, as many expect, for worse. That is his unilateral control over the United States Immigration Courts, perhaps America’s largest and most important Federal Court System, with 530,000+ pending cases, and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) about to be pushed into the already clogged “pipeline” under President Trump’s Executive Orders on immigration enforcement. Unlike most administrative courts within the Executive Branch, the Immigration Court not only has authority to order what in many cases can be indefinite “civil detention” but also to impose permanent exile on individuals (and, as a de facto matter on their U.S. citizen families), including some who were legally admitted to the United States and have resided here many years with “green cards.” Even in the area of criminal law, few judges in any system possess comparable authority to permanently affect the lives of so many individuals, their families, and their communities.

PWS

02/09/17

Undocumented Residents Are Part Of The Fabric Of Our Nation’s Capital

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-trumps-capital-undocumented-immigrants-live-and-work-in-the-shadow-of-the-white-house/2017/02/07/ed837844-e8d3-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html

Theresa Vargas and Steve Hendrix write in today’s Washington Post:

“Monroy is now working toward a master’s degree in international education. She is also the director of education at the Family Place, a service organization that offers literacy classes for adult immigrants, many of whom have no more than a third-grade education. She credits DACA with giving her that freedom to thrive and help others.

“A lot of fear I had before was taken away,” she said.

She hopes Trump will continue to honor the policy, but said if he revokes it, she is less worried about herself than others. Every day she sees women who come from places where gangs have taken their homes and tried to recruit their children. Women who fear not just instability, but losing loved ones, if they are forced to leave the United States. It is why in recent weeks she has attended protests at the White House and in front of the Trump hotel, adding her slight frame to the swelling crowds.

“I’ve told my friends if I have to go down with a fight, it will be a glamorous fight,” she said.”

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Read the full front-page story at the link.

PWS

02/09/17

Washington Post: Sessions Driving Trump’s Immigration Policies — Due Process Forecast For U.S. Immigration Courts: Dark & Stormy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-hard-line-actions-have-an-intellectual-godfather-jeff-sessions/2017/01/30/ac393f66-e4d4-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_sessions-0451pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2f7a86336f2d

Philip Rucker and Robert Costa write in the Washington Post:

“In jagged black strokes, President Trump’s signature was scribbled onto a catalogue of executive orders over the past 10 days that translated the hard-line promises of his campaign into the policies of his government.

The directives bore Trump’s name, but another man’s fingerprints were also on nearly all of them: Jeff Sessions.
The early days of the Trump presidency have rushed a nationalist agenda long on the fringes of American life into action — and Sessions, the quiet Alabamian who long cultivated those ideas as a Senate backbencher, has become a singular power in this new Washington.

Sessions’s ideology is driven by a visceral aversion to what he calls “soulless globalism,” a term used on the extreme right to convey a perceived threat to the United States from free trade, international alliances and the immigration of nonwhites.

And despite many reservations among Republicans about that worldview, Sessions — whose 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship was doomed by accusations of racism that he denied — is finding little resistance in Congress to his proposed role as Trump’s attorney general.

Sessions, left, and then-President-elect Donald Trump speak at a “USA Thank You Tour” rally in Sessions’s home town of Mobile, Ala., on Dec. 17. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Sessions’s nomination is scheduled to be voted on Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but his influence in the administration stretches far beyond the Justice Department. From immigration and health care to national security and trade, Sessions is the intellectual godfather of the president’s policies. His reach extends throughout the White House, with his aides and allies accelerating the president’s most dramatic moves, including the ban on refugees and citizens from seven mostly Muslim nations that has triggered fear around the globe.

The author of many of Trump’s executive orders is senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a Sessions confidant who was mentored by him and who spent the weekend overseeing the government’s implementation of the refugee ban. The tactician turning Trump’s agenda into law is deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, Sessions’s longtime chief of staff in the Senate. The mastermind behind Trump’s incendiary brand of populism is chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who, as chairman of the Breitbart website, promoted Sessions for years.

Then there is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who considers Sessions a savant and forged a bond with the senator while orchestrating Trump’s trip last summer to Mexico City and during the darkest days of the campaign.

[Trump lays groundwork to change U.S. role in the world]

In an email in response to a request from The Washington Post, Bannon described Sessions as “the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy” in Trump’s administration, saying he and the senator are at the center of Trump’s “pro-America movement” and the global nationalist phenomenon.”

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I suppose not surprisingly, Senator Session’s claim that he would rise above his past and be Attorney General for all Americans was just a disingenuous smokescreen. Well, as I’ve said before, sometimes philosophical bias prevents folks from acting both in their own self-interest and the national welfare. So, the fate of due process in the U.S. Immigration Courts is likely to end up in the hands of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and, eventually, the Supreme Court. If nothing else, Sessions could find out that he’s going to spend most of the next four years without much immigration enforcement at all, as the Article III Courts sort this out. Dumb me, for giving the guy the “benefit of the doubt.”

PWS

01/30/17

N. Rappaport Explains Trump’s EO On Interior Enforcement In The Hill!

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/316654-on-immigration-trump-will-learn-promises-are-easier-made-than

Nolan concludes:

“President Trump deserves credit for trying to carry out his campaign promises on interior immigration enforcement, but it is a tall order. It always was.”

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PWS

01/28/17

CBS News: “Overloaded U.S. immigration courts a ‘recipe for disaster'”

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-us-immigration-courts-deportations/

AIMEE PICCHI/MONEYWATCH writes:

“President Donald Trump is taking what he portrays as a hard-nosed approach to undocumented immigrants, issuing an order this week to boost the number of U.S. border patrol agents and to build detention centers.

But what happens when a federal push to ramp up arrests and deportations hits a severely backlogged federal court system?

“It’s a recipe for a due process disaster,” said Omar Jadwat, an attorney and director of the Immigrant Rights Project at the ACLU. Already, he pointed out, there are “large, large numbers of caseloads” in immigration court, and Mr. Trump’s directives threaten to greatly increase the number of people caught in the system, he said.

Just how backlogged is the system for adjudicating deportations and related legal matters? America’s immigration courts are now handling a record-breaking level of cases, with more than 533,000 cases currently pending, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC, a data gathering site that tracks the federal government’s enforcement activities. That figure is more than double the number when Mr. Obama took office in 2009.

As a result, immigrants awaiting their day in court face an average wait time of 678 days, or close to two years.
Immigrant rights advocates say the backlog is likely to worsen, citing Mr. Trump’s order on Wednesday to hire 5,000 additional border patrol agents while also enacting a freeze on government hiring. Whether the U.S. Justice Department, which oversees the immigration courts, will be able to add judges given the hiring freeze isn’t clear.

A spokeswoman from the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review said the agency is awaiting “further guidance” regarding the hiring freeze from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management. In the meantime, she said, the agency “will continue, without pause, to protect the nation with the available resources it has today.”

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There is video to go with the complete story at the link.

The situation is likely to get much worse in the U.S. Immigration Courts. Obviously, due process is not going to be a high priority for this Administration. And, while the Executive Orders can be read to give Attorney General Jeff Sessions authority to continue hiring Immigration Judges, filling the 75 or so currently vacant positions won’t begin to address the Immigration Courts’ workload problems.

Then, there are the questions of space and support staff. One of the reasons more vacancies haven’t been filled to date is that many Immigration Courts (for example, the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, VA) have simply run out of space for additional judges and staff.

The parent agency of the Immigration Courts, “EOIR,” is counting on being allowed to continue with expansion plans currently underway. But, even if Attorney General Sessions goes forward with those plans, that space won’t be ready until later in 2017, and that’s highly optimistic.

This does not seem like an Administration that will be willing to wait for the current lengthy highly bureaucratic hiring system to operate or for new Immigration Judges to be trained and “brought up to speed.” So various “gimmicks” to speed hiring, truncate training, and push the Administration’s “priority cases” — likely to be hundreds of thousands of additional cases — through the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals at breakneck speed.

Consequently, the whole “due process mess” eventually is likely to be thrown into the U.S. Courts of Appeals where “final orders of removal” are reviewed by Article III Judges with lifetime tenure, rather than by administrative judges appointed and supervised by the Attorney General.

PWS

01/28/17

Rosenberg, Schmidt Reunite For “Mastermind First 100 Days” Online Seminar On Tuesday, January 31, 2017!

My good friend and former BIA colleague, Hon. Lory Rosenberg writes:

“I’m proud to announce that my former BIA colleague, Immigration Judge Paul W. Schmidt (Ret.) will join us as a special guest for the very first meeting of IDEAS First 100 Days Mastermind, at 4PM ET next Tuesday, January 31st!

I’ve invited Judge Schmidt to freely share his thoughts and ideas with us, as well as to participate fully in our mastermind discussion.
As we dig through the existing labrynthine immigration statute – the one with the unfixed ’96 — and as we confront the ill-advised, anti-immigrant Executive Orders just signed by President Trump – the ones that abrogate our refugee protection obligations – l know Judge Schmidt’s wisdom and reflections will provide priceless inspiration and guidance.”

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Thanks for the kind words, Lory! The feeling is mutual. For more information on the seminar, go on over to Lory’s Mastermind website at:

http://www.loryrosenberg.com/First100days

PWS

01/28/17

Vox Reports More Harsh Executive Actions On Migration May Be In The Offing!

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/25/14390106/leaked-drafts-trump-immigrants-executive-order

“On Tuesday, Vox was given six documents that purported to be draft executive orders under consideration by the Trump administration. The source noted that “all of these documents are still going through formal review” in the Executive Office of the President and “have not yet been cleared by [the Department of Justice or the Office of Legal Counsel].”

We were not, at the time, able to verify the authenticity of the documents and did not feel it would be reasonable to publish or report on them.

But on Wednesday afternoon, Trump signed two executive orders on immigration that word-for-word matched the drafts we’d received. Given that our source had early access to two documents that were proven accurate, and that all the orders closely align with Trump’s stated policies on the campaign trail, we are reporting on the remaining four.

The source cautioned that “there are substantive comments on several of these drafts from multiple elements of NSC staff” and “if previous processes remain the norm, there [are] likely to be some substantive revisions.” It is possible these orders will emerge with substantial changes, or even be scrapped altogether.

We sent the White House PDFs of the documents and left voicemails with aides, but did not receive a response.

The two orders released today by the Trump administration, and delivered yesterday by our source, start the process of building President Trump’s famous “wall,” and make it easier for immigration agents to arrest, detain, and deport unauthorized immigrants at the border and in the US. Those policies are explained in detail here.

The four remaining draft orders obtained by Vox focus on immigration, terrorism, and refugee policy. They wouldn’t ban all Muslim immigration to the US, breaking a Trump promise from early in his campaign, but they would temporarily ban entries from seven majority-Muslim countries and bar all refugees from coming to the US for several months. They would make it harder for immigrants to come to the US to work, make it easier to deport them if they use public services, and put an end to the Obama administration program that protected young “DREAMer” immigrants from deportation.

In all, the combined documents would represent one of the harshest crackdowns on immigrants — both those here and those who want to come here — in memory.”

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See the full Vox story at the link for details on each of the “draft” orders.

PWS

01/25/17

Trump Signs Border Orders, Promises To Restore Control!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pledges-to-start-work-on-border-wall-within-months/2017/01/25/dddae6ee-e31e-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_immigration-2pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.a28fc29fd921

Breaking news from today’s Washington Post:

“President Trump signed a pair of executive actions Wednesday to begin ramping up immigration enforcement, including a new border wall with Mexico, vowing that construction on his chief campaign pledge would begin in months.

In an appearance at the Department of Homeland Security, Trump kicked off the rollout of a series of directives aimed at clamping down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States. Aides said more directives could come later this week, including new restrictions on refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.

The presidential directives signed Wednesday aim to create more detention centers, add more federal border control agents and withhold federal funds to cities that do not comply with federal immigration laws, Trump aides said.

“We are going to restore the rule of law in the United States,” Trump said, addressing DHS employees after signing the orders. “Beginning today the United State gets control of its borders.”

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Toward the end of the story, there might be good news for at least some so-called “Dreamers.” Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that President Trump recognized the humanitarian issues at stake here and was developing his solution.

PWS

01/25/17

Fox News: DACA Might Not Be On Trump’s Chopping Block, According To Priebus!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/22/priebus-hints-trump-has-no-immediate-plan-to-end-obamas-daca-for-young-illegals-seeks-long-term-fix.html

Fox News Politics reports:

“President Trump has no immediate plans to use his executive powers to undo the Obama administration’s order that protects some young illegal immigrants known as “dreamers,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus made clear Sunday, in previewing the new administration’s first full week.

“I think we’re going to work with the House and Senate leadership, as well as to get a long-term solution on that issue,” Priebus told “Fox News Sunday.” “I’m not going to make any commitments to you, but … I’m obviously foreshadowed there a little bit.”

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Never a dull moment! This seems to be moving along the lines that congressional columnist Nolan Rappaport had predicted in The Hill and on this blog.

Perhaps the Trump Administration will advance its own version of the “Dream Act” to put this issue to rest so that it can concentrate on enforcement initiatives. And, President Donald Trump appears to be better positioned to promote a final resolution of this issue with Congress than President Obama was during the final six years of his tenure.

A burst of pragmatism with a dash of humanitarianism thrown in would be a great, and, frankly, not widely anticipated, start for the new Administration in addressing the complex interrelated issues of migration, law enforcement, national security, and fundamental fairness. Harnessing and keeping the talents, energy, determination, courage, and intellectual/vocational firepower of these fine young people for America would be a huge step in promoting an even greater future for our country, as President Trump has promised. Stay tuned!

PWS

01/22/17

WSJ Editorial: Keep DACA, Can DAPA — Half Right Is Better Than All Wrong — But, Why Not Do The “Smart” Thing And Keep Them Both?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-immigration-chance-1484266731

“Donald Trump will have a busy first day repealing President Obama’s executive orders, and here’s a suggestion to lighten the work load and win some goodwill in the bargain: Don’t revoke the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration order.

DACA is the 2012 order granting temporary safe harbor for illegal immigrants who arrived as minors with their parents. That order is distinct from the 2014 Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) order, which exempts from deportation some four million illegal immigrants.

Mr. Trump should repeal DAPA, a sweeping usurpation of Congress’s power to write immigration laws. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked DAPA at the request of 26 states, and the Supreme Court voted 4-4 to uphold the injunction. DAPA was among Mr. Obama’s most cynical executive actions, at once poisoning the chances for serious immigration reform while trying to pit minorities against Republicans for political purposes.

DACA is also an executive action, but its repeal now would harm innocent men and women. The order is limited to children brought illegally to the U.S. before the age of 16 who are attending school or have graduated, and who have continuously resided in the U.S. since at least 2007. About 741,000 immigrants have applied for DACA’s reprieve, which lets them obtain work permits that must be renewed after two years for a nontrivial fee of $465.

DACA applicants must undergo background checks, and they cannot have a felony or serious misdemeanor record. They can’t collect federal benefits or vote. DACA essentially offers the right to work and pay taxes in the U.S., and many applicants have served in the military. If DACA is repealed, Homeland Security’s tracking will end as tens of thousands slip into the shadows to avoid deportation to “home” countries where they are strangers.

The Fifth Circuit dismissed a legal challenge to DACA by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach for lack of standing. We’d prefer if Congress codified DACA, and a bipartisan coalition of Senators wants to do so. This could be included if legislation moves this year to tighten immigration enforcement.

The main issue is fairness, as Mr. Trump has recognized. He told Time magazine in December that these young illegals were “brought here at a very young age. They’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here.” He added that “they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen” and “on a humanitarian basis, it’s a very tough situation.” He’s right, which is why we hope he’s willing to forbear on DACA while a legislative solution can be worked out.

No one doubts Mr. Trump’s resolve to reduce illegal immigration, and repealing DAPA would honor that campaign promise. But minors brought to the U.S. illegally aren’t responsible for that decision. Giving them a deportation reprieve would show that Mr. Trump’s immigration policy is aimed at enforcing the law, not at punishing minorities or any ethnic group. We can’t think of another early decision that would send a comparable message of inclusion and largeness of presidential spirit.”

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I agree on DACA, disagree on DAPA. The reasons for going forward and implementing the DAPA program are almost as strong as for retaining DACA.

DAPA’s proposed beneficiaries — parents of U.S. citizens and green card holders — probably aren’t going to be removed anyway under the DHS priorities as initially described by soon to be DHS Secretary Gen. John Kelly. They need to be taken off overcrowded Immigration Court dockets if the Trump Administration wants to pursue its version of “criminal removal” as a priority (although I note that this is essentially the same priority as the Obama Administration had). Instead of just leaving the DAPA folks “in limbo,” why not get them registered, documented, checked for criminal record, working legally, and make it easier for them to pay taxes, without handing out green cards or any other type of permanent status? It would be good for America.

PWS

01/13/17

Good News For Dreamers? — Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) Recognizes Moral, Human, And Practical Imperatives In Retaining DACA!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/13/in-remarkable-exchange-with-undocumented-mom-paul-ryan-exposes-cruelty-of-trumpism/?utm_term=.01a68f26de2a

As reported by Greg Sargent in his “The Morning Plum” in today’s Post, speaker Ryan had an exchange with an undocumented mother which got right to the heart of the human beings whose lives are in play in the DACA debate:

“In a remarkable exchange with an undocumented mother last night at a CNN town hall, House Speaker Paul Ryan strongly suggested to her that the revocation of protections for the DREAMers brought here as children will not be carried out. That’s newsworthy on its own. But beyond that, the exchange also exposed the cruelty of stepped-up mass deportations for many other low-level undocumented offenders:

It’s a powerful moment, but the policy details lurking underneath the emotion are also extremely important. A woman brought here illegally as an 11-year-old child “through no fault of her own,” as CNN’s Jake Tapper put it, asked whether she and “many families in my situation” should face deportation. “No,” Ryan responded. After noting her love for her daughter, Ryan added:

“What we have to do is find a way to make sure that you can get right with the law. And we’ve got to do this so that the rug doesn’t get pulled out from under you and your family gets separated. That’s the way we feel. And that is exactly what our new, incoming president has stated he wants to do….I’m sure you’re a great contributor to [your] community.”

This might be a reference to the fact that Trump recently seemed to back off his pledge to reverse President Obama’s executive action protecting DREAMers from deportation, saying instead that “we’re going to work something out” for them. Indeed, under subsequent questioning from Tapper, Ryan explicitly said he and the Trump transition team were working on a “good, humane solution” for the hundreds of thousands currently benefiting from that executive action.”

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I hope that Speaker Ryan, a powerful person on the Washington scene, will be able to follow through on persuading President Trump and his GOP Congressional colleagues to “do the right thing” here. Combined with soon to be DHS Secretary Gen. John Kelly’s non-polemical statements on DACA and enforcement priorities, there seems to be some hope of a reasonable solution to this difficult human situation.

PWS

01/13/17

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