"Compassionate Conservatism" Officially Inducted Into the Oxymoron Hall of Fame

D.A.C.A takes another blow

A federal judge in Texas — surprise, surprise — ruled last week in a case filed by Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly known as DACA, is illegal. DACA was a change in immigration policy implemented by President Obama in 2012 after Senate Republicans blocked passage of the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act in 2010 (filibuster strikes again). This marks 22 years of good Christian Republicans’ refusal to enact protections for a category of “illegal” immigrants brought into the United States as children, many of whom have never really known another “home” country. The number of individuals who qualify for the protections of DACA is estimated to be about 2 million, but less than half that number have applied. Two million is about 0.6% of the total population.

I can’t really comment on the legal issues because I’m not really certain how DACA came to be in the first place — I think by executive order, but I’m not certain. I am certain that I’m not an attorney or anything significantly similar so my knowing how DACA came to be is moot. The real issue is that DACA was intended as a stopgap until a piece of legislation called the DREAM Act, first introduced in 2001, could resolve this conundrum — the extraordinary cruelty of deporting individuals who were brought to the U.S. involuntarily to a “home” country they have never known. But as cruel as that would certainly be, I have to say that the constant and consistent state of uncertainty might be worse, especially for those who have made themselves known by applying for DACA protections (about half of those thought to be eligible).

Iconic plaque “The New Colossus” on the Statue of Liberty

The Republican Party position on DACA was stated succinctly in 2019 by Ken Cuccinelli, Donald Trump’s acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, when asked about the “Give me your tired, Your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” He suggested those lines should be rewritten as Jesus would have phrased it — “give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge." (Corinthians One) And yet like many Republican Party positions, this one is bullshit. Reliable resources, including the George W. Bush Presidential Center, have quantified economic contributions of “Dreamers” into the hundreds of billions of dollars. An estimated 96% of this population is either employed or in school, and many have created wonderful American families. And yet Republicans persist in refusing to accommodate this tiny, productive percentage of our population. They create a problem where there really isn’t one, and then douse it with the fuel of cruelty and hatred. Jesus said, “suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Republicans say, “Woke!!”

Maybe the creation of DACA wasn’t completely Kosher, but this is a problem crying out for a solution — the DREAM Act. We could have all just looked the other way until this legislation eventually found a mutual solution, but these nine states couldn’t just let it be. Of course, in evaluating this current lawsuit we shouldn’t discount the horrible problems this group of “dreamers” may have caused to the educational systems in Louisianna and South Carolina (#’s 48 and 49), or the healthcare systems in Arkansas and West Virginia (#’s 49 and 50), or Alabama’s standing as the “worst state for women,” or the Texas power grid — oh wait, I got the “Dreamers” mixed up with White Christian Nationalists there. And that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? As the Holy Bible says, “Let not the blame for your own troubles fall upon your head when you can falsely lay the costs at the feet of innocent children.” (Corinthians Two)