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Don’t dash hopes, contributions of Dreamers

Sun., Sept. 3, 2017

The prospect of President Donald Trump ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program spotlights one of the more maddening examples of a self-inflicted wound in the name of politics.

DACA allows illegal immigrants who entered the country before their 16th birthday to work or pursue higher education without fear of deportation if they have not committed serious crimes and have attended school or joined the military. They are in the country through no fault of their own and have little or no connection to their birthplaces.

President Barack Obama adopted the program in 2012 after Congress failed to pass Dream Act legislation – hence, the term “Dreamers” for these young people. Their goals represent the American Dream. An estimated 800,000 young people who were brought to this country illegally by their parents have benefited.

So has the country.

Ending DACA and deporting nearly 700,000 workers would result in a $460 billion hit to the nation’s gross national product over the first decade, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. Washington state would experience an annual GDP drain of about $1 billion. In Idaho, it would be $155 million.

Eight in 10 voters, including a majority of Trump voters, said Dreamers should be allowed to stay, according to a Morning Consult Poll released in April. Only 14 percent of Trump voters supported deportation.

So why end it? Politics. Obama did it, so the knee-jerk reaction is to undo it. Critics say Obama exceeded his authority and that Congress should resolve the matter. That would be the same body that failed to advance Dreamer bills, because a contingent of immigration hard-liners won’t allow it. It’s the same body that’s failed to adopt comprehensive immigration reform.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is urging the president to leave the program in place while Congress takes up the issue – again. Many Republicans are lobbying Trump to hold off.

Tuesday seems be the key date, because that’s the deadline set by nine state attorneys general before they file a lawsuit against Obama’s DACA order. Sadly, Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden signed onto that effort, as has Gov. Butch Otter. He’s the only governor to do so.

Trump, who was an outspoken DACA critic as a candidate, appears to be softening. On Friday, he said, “We love the Dreamers.”

Also on Friday, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III dropped out of the threatened lawsuit, saying “there is a human element to this … and should not be ignored.”

There’s always been a human element. Marena Guzman, a DACA beneficiary and doctoral candidate at Washington State University, explained it in an Aug. 13 op-ed in this paper:

“With DACA, I have found prosperity and hopefully a bright future in Washington state. I am here to earn a place in America through hard work and respect. I look forward to diving deeper into my scientific research and contributing to science a small but fundamental understanding on the infectious diseases that affect us. I think Congress should want me to stay.”

We all should.