Protecting ‘Dreamers,’ avoiding shutdown
Nov 29, 2017, 3:26 PM
(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
Under Obama, Democrats denounced the GOP for using desperate measures to block the president’s agenda — including a 16-day government shutdown in 2013. Now Democrats threaten the same tactics they once decried, and Republicans must pre-empt their key issue: protecting the so-called “Dreamers.”
More than 80 percent of Americans oppose deportation of undocumented residents brought here as children, who have stayed out of trouble with the law, made measurable progress in work or education, and registered for work permits under President Obama’s legally dubious DACA program.
These young people have lived most of their lives in our country, and shouldn’t be blamed for decisions made by their parents, or by the prior president. As President Trump urges, Republicans in Congress should protect the Dreamers the right way: through legislation, not a controversial executive order.
In so doing, they can avoid the twin disasters of government shutdown and mass deportations of those who followed the previous rules by signing up for DACA.
