DACA ditched: Reaction was swift Tuesday to President Donald Trump’s decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that let thousands of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children remain in the United States, reports cleveland.com’s Sabrina Eaton.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the DACA program will wind down after six months to give Congress time to address the fate of the program’s participants,” Eaton writes. “He said the Department of Justice evaluated the policy’s constitutionality and determined it conflicts with immigration laws.”
While Sessions and some other Republicans criticized DACA as overreach and welcomed its demise, Democrats including U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio decried the decision.
“President Trump promised to go after violent criminals, not innocent children,” Brown said. “We should not be targeting young people who are working, going to school, paying taxes and contributing to this country – the country they grew up in and the only home they’ve ever known.”
Republican Sen. Rob Portman said in his own statement that he supports “bipartisan efforts to find a permanent solution that will allow those in the DACA program to stay here and continue to contribute to our society,” and that he believes “we can and should respect the rule of law while also dealing with this issue in a humane and compassionate way, and that’s the approach I believe the administration and members of both parties in Congress should take as we look at legislative solutions on this issue.”
Colleges offer support: “Ohio’s public and private colleges are supporting undocumented immigrant students after President Donald Trump announced that the DACA program allowing them to remain in the United States should end,” writes cleveland.com’s Karen Farkas.
Among those weighing in was Ohio State University, which issued this statement: “We are reviewing the action taken today and its potential impacts at Ohio State. By definition, these individuals arrived as children, have known only this country as home and have grown up working to make real the American Dream. We support them strongly and are committed to their success. Ohio State is engaged in active dialogue with our peers and policymakers around the country, and we continue to closely monitor this important issue.”
Mourning Meshel: The Youngstown Vindicator has a warm tribute to former state Senate President and Democratic chairman Harry Meshel, who died on Labor Day at age 93.
Meshel was “one of the Mahoning Valley’s most accomplished politicians,” writes Kalea Hall.
“More than that, he was a friend, a man with a lot of pride for who he was and for his city; the town historian who enjoyed a glass of scotch.”
More national media love for the guv: John Kasich, “the conservative standing his ground,” reads the ranking by Politico Magazine, which named the Republican Ohio governor in its list of “50 ideas blowing up American politics (and the people behind them).”
Politico noted that Kasich is among a “small handful” of GOP officials willing to criticize President Donald Trump publicly, particularly on health care.
“As a party that once supported free trade and NATO falls in line behind a president who criticizes both, Kasich has remained a tribune of moderate conservative values,” Edward-Isaac Dovere writes. “His distance from Trump and his open frustration with the current GOP, plus his Reagan-strong Republican roots, have some people thinking Kasich might be back again, even if that means trying to primary Trump in 2020.”
So, who ranked above Kasich? Kasich was ranked 35th. Political heavyweights including comedians Jordan Peele (33) and Melissa McCarthy (20) were ahead of him.
However, Kasich ranked ahead of U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was 50th. Poor Paul Ryan.
Another Ohio politico gets national pub: Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat who is running for governor, recently took part in a roundtable of mayors organized by New York Magazine exploring what Washington D.C. can learn from local government. (The roundtable also featured, among others, Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Indiana mayor for whom Whaley offered a symbolic nomination for chairman of the Democratic National Committee last year.)
Whaley touted a schools levy for which she helped broker support from the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce and her 2014 move to declare a local state of emergency over the opioid crisis, which has wracked Dayton.
Game on for Gonzalez: Former Ohio State University football star and St. Ignatius grad Anthony Gonzalez on Tuesday officially announced his candidacy for Ohio’s 16th congressional seat in 2018. I reported last…
