Protect the Dreamers

Protect the Dreamers

No Hate Allowed Here

Immigration reform has been a hot button issue since people started travelling to new places. We are a nation of immigrants and those who settled here in the first instance would claim that all those who came after them and took their lands are here illegally. We white folks settled those claims in the Indian Wars of the 1800s by brute force and genocide, but never you mind that part of our history.

The current effort to rid our shores of brown skinned immigrants was announced with a smirk by Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions this week. President Trump made the call, but left it to Sessions to announce the decision and he did so gleefully.

Former president Obama tried without success to fix immigration in Congress, but the republican majority prevented a comprehensive fix. As a last resort, President Obama implemented DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, to tackle what appeared to be an easy part of the problem. He protected the Dreamers, kids who were brought to our shores by parents who entered this country without proper documents.

DACA made it possible for the Dreamers to remain under certain conditions. Almost 800,000 received DACA protected status because they met conditions that include registration, proof of entry while a minor with parents without documentation, educational attainment or military service and lack of a criminal record. They paid a hefty fee for the privilege to boot. As adults with a protected status, they are productive members of our communities.

The average DACA recipient is 26 years old and came here at the age of six. Ninety-one percent are gainfully employed. One hundred percent have no criminal record. They pay $500 to renew their status every two years. One, a Houston paramedic, died rescuing people in his flooded city after Hurricane Harvey.

With the stroke of a pen, the Trump/Sessions administration took away DACA protection for these neighbors of ours, subjecting them to easy incarceration and deportation, unless Congress acts to solve the problem by next March.

The GOP controlled Congress has not been able to pass a single piece of significant legislation yet. Internal divisions between ultra conservative members of the Freedom caucus and more moderate GOP pragmatists have prevented House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from advancing a budget, passing healthcare reform, or much of anything else. Tax code reform bills are next, along with funding the wall on our southern border, infrastructure repair and natural disaster relief measures. With all this on the congressional plate, and little GOP interest in talking with Democrats, comprehensive immigration reform or even protection for the Dreamers appears well beyond the horizon for consideration in this short period of time.

Make no mistake. This move is just another of the racially motivated actions by those currently in power to Make America White Again. Trump’s rhetoric and actions increasingly appeal to those white Anglo-Saxon evangelical racists who voted for him as he tries to shore up his political base against the rising tide of opposition from those in both parties and the Independent middle who fear further erosion of our democracy.

Former President Obama took the unusual step of weighing in on President Trump’s action and concluded his condemnation of it with the following:

“Ultimately, this is about basic decency. This is about whether we are a people who kick hopeful young strivers out of America, or whether we treat them the way we’d want our own kids to be treated. It’s about who we are as a people – and who we want to be.

“What makes us American is not a question of what we look like, or where our names come from, or the way we pray. What makes us American is our fidelity to a set of ideals – that all of us are created equal; that all of us deserve the chance to make of our lives what we will; that all of us share an obligation to stand up, speak out, and secure our most cherished values for the next generation. That’s how America has traveled this far. That’s how, if we keep at it, we will ultimately reach that more perfect union.”

We must protect the Dreamers just like many Germans did when they hid the Jews from Hitler’s thugs. We must stand up for our neighbors, friends and co-workers who share in the American Dream. Hate, prejudice and discrimination must not be allowed to triumph.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired lawyer who serves as a guardian for minors, the elderly and disabled.