Wayne Dupree: DACA ruling is right, illegal immigrants should never get to jump the line on visas

Democrats are unhappy because a judge has called a halt to the DACA program designed to protect the children of illegal immigrants. But the decision is correct: why should the United States reward law-breakers?

This past weekend, a federal judge in Texas, Judge Andrew Hanen, ruled that the Biden administration had to stop all applications for Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and that the program – established when Barack Obama was president – was illegal.

Some of you may not be familiar with what DACA is. A quick way to explain it is that it was an executive action produced by the Obama administration in 2012 as a stopgap measure to protect children brought into this country illegally by their illegal parents. Democrats now call them ‘dreamers’. Congress has failed to pass legislation on these children for years, and it’s estimated 700,000 have benefited from the program.

Democrats always want to put a bow on stink, but I don’t have time to cover up this mess with flowers and incense. These people who cross over the border without permission or overstay their visas and disappear, never to be heard from again, are illegal aliens. They are illegal whether you are sympathetic to their plight or not; they are breaking the law.

It was interesting to see how Democrats responded to then-President Trump’s offer to grant these illegal aliens some form of legal status with a potential path to citizenship. Trump offered to sign a bill to allow double the number of DACA children to be citizens if Congress would fund his border wall. And the Democrats turned it down.

Very simply, amnesty does not work unless you close the border. Ronald Reagan did this deal, and the Democrats agreed, only to renege on closing the border after giving amnesty. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

By definition, DACA immigrants – from numerous countries worldwide – have been in the USA without a proper visa or have overstayed their visas. They constitute a vast class of illegal immigrants who have not gone through the normal channels to get a visa or green card. They and their parents found various ways to work around the system, and they stayed illegally because of tepid enforcement.

I accept that many of the DACA class may very well be good people, but so are most of the other immigrants who wait in line. The rule should be that the DACA class can stay only if they have a pending USCIS application and get in line with everyone else, and they or their immediate family must be gainfully employed. Otherwise, they should face deportation.

We have millions of qualified applicants for legal immigration. Perhaps Democrats, RINOs and liberals want to turn that system off and simply accept everyone who is smuggled over unguarded borders? This, after all, would ensure the largest number of voters dependent on taxpayers and laws to support them. Real Americans, though, prefer a law that provides a path designed to let illegals stay and earn citizenship, but not as fast as for legal arrivals. This is fair, but not as costly, and delivers less of a political advantage and less in the way of electoral security. This only works if we also secure our borders.

Is the United States the only country in the world where people are rewarded for breaking its laws? These children came with parents who entered the country illegally, which is unfair to the people who waited to be approved, and also to the citizens of this country who do not think this is the sort of program that should be funded through their taxes. I would rather we take care of our own who need help, instead of taking care of the world.

People who break our laws should be fearful of being caught. They can relieve the fear and uncertainty by turning themselves in or voluntarily returning to their own country and applying for immigration to our once-great country the proper way.

But the problem with liberal Democrats in a nutshell is that they consider any means to achieve their policy goals as justified, even if they violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), are unconstitutional, sidestep the democratic processes of elected representatives embodied in Congress, and undermine our democratic institutions.

And so our president can only say “it’s deeply disappointing” when an illegal, unconstitutional executive order such as DACA is finally blocked.

Democrats rail against the January 6 riot as an ‘organized insurrection’, but they have been working on their own organized insurrection to render the very institutions of our democracy moot for the past several decades. Citizenship should never be gifted – yes, it is a gift, not a right – to anyone here illegally. And as for DACA in particular – grant them legal residency at best, and there absolutely must be a cut-off date. Otherwise, it will be a huge incentive in perpetuity.

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