President Donald Trump’s decision this week to remove protection for 800,000 immigrants who came here illegally as children was both cruel and thoughtless. Pressed by hard-liners in his administration and hemmed in by his own campaign rhetoric, the president punted. Rather than announce the decision himself, Trump sent beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions out to announce an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But in characteristic fashion, the president quickly undercut his own policy by tweeting that if Congress doesn’t act to fix the problem, he will revisit his decision. It was pure Trump — all impulse and no thought.
The ball is now in Congress’ court — where it has always been. President Barack Obama’s decision to protect so-called “dreamers” through executive means was fraught with danger. It was never a permanent fix; it was just a way to ensure that those who had violated U.S. law through no fault of their own could remain in the country they called home without fear of being deported, as long as they obeyed the rules. As I argued at the time, President Obama was well within his authority to decide that these young people were not a priority for deportation — but to provide real security to these young immigrants, Congress needed to pass legislation.
The votes are there to pass a bill to protect childhood arrivals, but it will require bipartisanship of the kind not seen often during the 115th Congress. Democrats are ready to vote for a bill to put dreamers on the path to citizenship; the issue has become a virtual litmus test on the left. And despite the ugly rhetoric on the right and the anti-immigrant fanaticism in the GOP base, there are enough Republicans who favor helping dreamers to get…
