DACA: Dreamers Against Cruel Autocrats
Immigrants, immigrants, immigrants. What a poor, unfortunate, and apparently fully integrated into our society group they are.
I'm sure no one's missed this week's headlines that all involve...you guessed it, DACA. Aside from Hurricane Harvey, DACA is just about the biggest thing happening right now, almost eclipsing the Charlottesville debacle entirely. In case you haven't heard about it though, presumably because you've been living under a rock, here's the 411 for our Cavemen (and Caveladies, let's not add sexism to the long list of sins piling up here) on DACA.
DACA was a policy issued by the Obama Administration allowing unregistered *cough* illegal *cough* immigrants that came to the U.S. before the age of 16 to remain in the U.S. with citizenship privileges. These child immigrants have come to be known as Dreamers, a catchy little moniker, no doubt about that. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, even pure, rainbow and sunshine policies that completely by-pass normal legal procedures like Congress, such as this one.
It is a well-known fact that Trump is the devil, the boogeyman, and probably Jason from Friday the 13th too. However, even in-between telling our children campfire horror stories about the man in the Oval Office (perhaps the White House should consider hosting a haunted house this Halloween), none of us suspected that he would actually move to dismantle DACA. I mean, it's not like he mentioned it numerous times while campaigning or anything, right? Okay, so, maybe he did, but how were we supposed to know he would actually do it? Trump's clearly not like all the other politicians renowned for always following through on every single one of their promises to the best of their ability.
So here we stand, in quite a pretty pickle. At least, you're in a pickle if you're one of these so-called Dreamers. HuffPost writer Elise Foley says that these poor individuals really only hope to "live without the imminent threat of being returned to countries they hadn’t seen since childhood."
Here's the part where I get stumped though. It's right around the word "imminent." Now, two years can be argued as a long way away, but compared to an entire lifetime spent in a country, two years seems pretty close to imminent. Two years is also, coincidentally, how long the protection of DACA lasts. Of course, going with the former flawless viewpoint, two years is ages and these immigrants have all the time in the world to keep building up lives under the benevolent shelter of DACA.
Evil has stepped in though, and Trump is threatening to actually hold to his promises and do what he says he will, shamefully. However, in an effort to give himself more time to block out the opinions of everyone else (or maybe listen to his advisors and try to make the best decision, idk, probs one of those two), Trump has postponed this decision for 6 months. He has also, in a truly radical move, decided to hand the decision over to Congress. This decision becomes even more out of the box when you consider how our last President, the saint-like Obama, issued 276 executive orders. You would think Trump would follow in his lauded footsteps, but strangely he's decided not to this time, even after the huge media backlash that accompanied his first dozen executive orders.
Here's where things get really tricky though. As it turns out, the popular opinion is that Congress isn't equipped to make this decision. Of course! How could we not have realized? Naturally, the people who get paid to make these kinds of decisions and are trusted with some of the most important decisions of the free world are not actually capable of making these decisions.
Of course, it's not entirely Congress's fault that they probably won't be able to adequately handle this burden that is totally and completely not their legal responsibility. As Washington Post writer David Nakamura pointed out, Congress has a "busy fall agenda" this year. Ignoring the fact that in 6 months we will actually be well into winter and dangerously close to spring, it seems completely reasonable that Congress can't do their job because they're too busy doing their job. That doesn't sound like circular logic at all.
However, I can't fault Congress. If I, a Junior in high school, have completed almost all necessary coursework to graduate, who is entering the Running Start program for her Junior year, can do my job so competently, why would Congress be able to do the same? I mean, it's not like they're a group of professionals that we voted in trusting they would be able to actually handle things like this, or that when they get a full plate they'll somehow find a way to empty it. It seems unreasonable that we want Congress to work for their pay. That's like saying minimum wage jobs weren't originally created to support a family, and instead were designed for giving people a platform from which to launch a much more successful career than flipping burgers; but I digress.
In short, the issue comes down to this. We are letting our president, the leader of the free nation, get away with not only following the law and consulting Congress but also expecting Congress to be able to competently execute their job, all in a timely fashion that takes into consideration Congress's schedule. Now that's gosh darn deplorable.
-Little Miss Deplorable
Sources: On DACA, President Trump Has No Easy Path - The New York Times, Both sides gear up for political fight as Trump prepares to end immigration protections for ‘dreamers’ - The Washington Post, Trump Reportedly To End DACA With 6-Month Delay | HuffPost, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals - Wikipedia, List of United States federal executive orders - Wikipedia
I'm sure no one's missed this week's headlines that all involve...you guessed it, DACA. Aside from Hurricane Harvey, DACA is just about the biggest thing happening right now, almost eclipsing the Charlottesville debacle entirely. In case you haven't heard about it though, presumably because you've been living under a rock, here's the 411 for our Cavemen (and Caveladies, let's not add sexism to the long list of sins piling up here) on DACA.
DACA was a policy issued by the Obama Administration allowing unregistered *cough* illegal *cough* immigrants that came to the U.S. before the age of 16 to remain in the U.S. with citizenship privileges. These child immigrants have come to be known as Dreamers, a catchy little moniker, no doubt about that. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, even pure, rainbow and sunshine policies that completely by-pass normal legal procedures like Congress, such as this one.
It is a well-known fact that Trump is the devil, the boogeyman, and probably Jason from Friday the 13th too. However, even in-between telling our children campfire horror stories about the man in the Oval Office (perhaps the White House should consider hosting a haunted house this Halloween), none of us suspected that he would actually move to dismantle DACA. I mean, it's not like he mentioned it numerous times while campaigning or anything, right? Okay, so, maybe he did, but how were we supposed to know he would actually do it? Trump's clearly not like all the other politicians renowned for always following through on every single one of their promises to the best of their ability.
So here we stand, in quite a pretty pickle. At least, you're in a pickle if you're one of these so-called Dreamers. HuffPost writer Elise Foley says that these poor individuals really only hope to "live without the imminent threat of being returned to countries they hadn’t seen since childhood."
Here's the part where I get stumped though. It's right around the word "imminent." Now, two years can be argued as a long way away, but compared to an entire lifetime spent in a country, two years seems pretty close to imminent. Two years is also, coincidentally, how long the protection of DACA lasts. Of course, going with the former flawless viewpoint, two years is ages and these immigrants have all the time in the world to keep building up lives under the benevolent shelter of DACA.
Evil has stepped in though, and Trump is threatening to actually hold to his promises and do what he says he will, shamefully. However, in an effort to give himself more time to block out the opinions of everyone else (or maybe listen to his advisors and try to make the best decision, idk, probs one of those two), Trump has postponed this decision for 6 months. He has also, in a truly radical move, decided to hand the decision over to Congress. This decision becomes even more out of the box when you consider how our last President, the saint-like Obama, issued 276 executive orders. You would think Trump would follow in his lauded footsteps, but strangely he's decided not to this time, even after the huge media backlash that accompanied his first dozen executive orders.
Here's where things get really tricky though. As it turns out, the popular opinion is that Congress isn't equipped to make this decision. Of course! How could we not have realized? Naturally, the people who get paid to make these kinds of decisions and are trusted with some of the most important decisions of the free world are not actually capable of making these decisions.
Of course, it's not entirely Congress's fault that they probably won't be able to adequately handle this burden that is totally and completely not their legal responsibility. As Washington Post writer David Nakamura pointed out, Congress has a "busy fall agenda" this year. Ignoring the fact that in 6 months we will actually be well into winter and dangerously close to spring, it seems completely reasonable that Congress can't do their job because they're too busy doing their job. That doesn't sound like circular logic at all.
However, I can't fault Congress. If I, a Junior in high school, have completed almost all necessary coursework to graduate, who is entering the Running Start program for her Junior year, can do my job so competently, why would Congress be able to do the same? I mean, it's not like they're a group of professionals that we voted in trusting they would be able to actually handle things like this, or that when they get a full plate they'll somehow find a way to empty it. It seems unreasonable that we want Congress to work for their pay. That's like saying minimum wage jobs weren't originally created to support a family, and instead were designed for giving people a platform from which to launch a much more successful career than flipping burgers; but I digress.
In short, the issue comes down to this. We are letting our president, the leader of the free nation, get away with not only following the law and consulting Congress but also expecting Congress to be able to competently execute their job, all in a timely fashion that takes into consideration Congress's schedule. Now that's gosh darn deplorable.
-Little Miss Deplorable
Sources: On DACA, President Trump Has No Easy Path - The New York Times, Both sides gear up for political fight as Trump prepares to end immigration protections for ‘dreamers’ - The Washington Post, Trump Reportedly To End DACA With 6-Month Delay | HuffPost, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals - Wikipedia, List of United States federal executive orders - Wikipedia
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