The DACA Drama

Letter date: 
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Letter publisher: 
News Topic - North Carolina
Letter author: 
Tom Shuford
Letter body: 

In 2012 President Obama deferred immigration enforcement for illegal aliens claiming arrival before age 16. Obama's unconstitutional "executive action" is known as DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. By 2014 Central America had gotten the message. Unaccompanied minors began surging through Mexico over the U.S. border.

DACA expires in March. Democrats want a permanent amnesty for 800,000 DACA recipients. Trump wants a wall and tightened rules for legal immigration. President Trump (tweet, Dec. 29): "The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of immigration etc."  Let's look at Trump's demands:
 
THE WALL: Israel built impenetrable walls in recent years. One result is this headline in an Israeli newspaper on Jan. 1: "Steps to prevent illegal migrants from entering Israel 100% effective in 2017." Zero illegal entries are remarkable for a wealthy country in a poor region. Israelis took other protective actions, but walls are crucial.
 
CHAIN MIGRATION:  "For over 50 years, naturalized citizens have been able to petition for the immigration of parents, adult siblings, and adult sons and daughters, all of whom can bring their own spouses and children. When those spouses and children naturalize, they may, in turn, sponsor further relatives, and so on."  (Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies).
 
An immigrant should be able to sponsor only a spouse and minor children. Chain migration of extended families drives most legal immigration. Chain migration has shifted source countries for immigration from Europe to Latin America and Asia.
 
DIVERSITY VISA LOTTERY: The U.S. selects by lottery 50,000 people annually from under-represented, often terror-prone countries. Then they bring relatives by chain migration.
 
Three terrorists in November and December incidents, Sayfullo Saipov and Akayed Ullah in New York City and Ahmed Amin El-Mofty in Pennsylvania, were "gifts" to America from the Congresses who voted for chain migration in 1965 and for the Diversity Lottery in 1990.
 
Unlike the tax reform bill, the Senate will need 60 votes for immigration legislation. At least nine Democrat senators will have to vote to slow huge annual inflows of future Democrat voters from chain migration and from the diversity lottery. The prospect of a DACA amnesty, a passionate cause for Democrats, might tempt a few Democrat senators to deal with Trump.