GIVING DREAMER’S FALSE HOPE

How unexpected, sad to say. In the middle of the pandemic and street demonstrations across the country calling for racial justice, the U.S. Supreme Court goes and rights a wrong against immigrants by blocking the president’s decision to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — DACA.

This deeply divided Supreme Court, in this deeply divided country, especially when it comes to immigration, got it absolutely right. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion and joined liberal justices in the 5-4 vote, fittingly called the Department of Homeland Security’s actions against DREAMers “arbitrary and capricious” and, therefore, unlawful.

The struggles of the Dreamers tug at the heart: An estimated 650,000 kids raised in the United States, but brought here illegally, faced deportation to their native countries, which they barely remembered, if at all.

The Miami Herald Editorial

In an extremely shameful act, the Miami paper The He..rag (pun intended) in their constant pursuit of attacking president Trump, gives false hope to a group of young men and women who came with their parents to our country illegally.     They have in fact only experienced their lives here and most people, regardless of politics, approve a legal pathway for them to stay in the only home they know in order to fulfill their hopes.    To become legal they would need an act of Congress through a reform of the Immigration laws.

The Executive branch can only execute the laws the most effective way possible, but always following the letter and/or intent of the legislation.     Homeland Security can justify ignoring deportation of these DACA recipients by prioritizing other illegal’s, criminals and the like.    This, of course does not give the affected any permanent status and/or security.    President Obama understood this and after saying in many occasions that as president he had few options, but frustrated by the Congress inaction established the DACA act.    Obama had previously declared;

«I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself.» In March 2011, he said that with «respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order that’s just not the case.» In May 2011, he acknowledged that he couldn’t «just bypass Congress and change the (immigration) law myself. … That’s not how a democracy works.»

So, as a matter of fact Obama, frustrated by the Congress lack of action tried to force their hand through an order that he knew would be objected to and reversed.    After his election Trump made immigration reform one of his priorities but even if he made obvious that he would sign a law legalizing DACA in exchange for funding of a border law, an appropriation approved twice in the past by democrats, his efforts were in vain.

He joined the attempt to eliminate DACA through another act by Homeland Security.    This was what SCOTUS decided on, not a law but an unconstitutional executive order.   Trump clearly expressed that, as Obama had previously said, he was only trying to force the hand of Congress and assured the DACA recipients that they would not be deported.    Trump’s words;

 Thus, in effect, I am not going to just cut DACA off, but rather provide a window of opportunity for Congress to finally act.  Our enforcement priorities remain unchanged. We are focused on criminals, security threats, recent border-crossers; visas overstay, and repeat violators. I have advised the Department of Homeland Security that DACA recipients are not enforcement priorities unless they are criminals, are involved in criminal activity, or are members of a gang.

So, the Herald editorial tried to make Trump look “mean”, and make the innocent victims feel secure when there was no reason to be.    They exaggerated SCOTUS decision, used words as “unlawful”, when there was no law involved and ignored the fact that the pressure should be directed at Congress, disregarding Schumer’s hypocritical crocodile tears, that regardless of Party had continued to fail in their duties.    Here you can read the SCOTUS facts, highlighting Justice Robert’s majority opinion and Justice Thomas minority one.

The dispute before the Court is not whether DHS may rescind DACA. All parties agree that it may. The dispute is instead primarily about the procedure the agency followed in doing so. The APA “sets forth the procedures by which federal agencies are accountable to the public and their actions subject to review by the courts.” Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U. S. 788, 796 (1992). It requires agencies to engage in “reasoned decision making.” 

Justice Roberts

 

DHS was not forced to explain its treatment of reliance interests in the first instance by going through notice and comment. See infra, at 23–24. The majority’s demand for such an explanation here simply makes little sense. At bottom, of course, none of this matters, because DHS did provide a sufficient explanation for its action. 

Justice Thomas.

 

It is clear that it was only an objection on the wording, not the constitutionality what was decided by SCOTUS in a 5 to 4 vote and explained by Justice Roberts, something that the DHS can easily and expediently correct.   What the editorial demonstrates is not only the false interpretation of the decision but their malicious intent.

Fernando J. Milanes, MD