Simon Cox Blog: DACA Done Right: A Moment We All Can Stand with DREAMers

Wednesday, 6 September 2017

DACA Done Right: A Moment We All Can Stand with DREAMers

President Trump and many immigration leaders agree with faith leaders: Congress should act in compassion toward the DREAMers

We have an opportunity, here, to unify the nation around the DREAMers.

Yes, comprehensive immigration policy is complicated. But the forward path for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) need not be.

President Trump is asking Congress to vote a compassionate path forward for the DREAMers (DACA recipients). In a time when we are divided as a nation, and with so many concerned about immigration, this moment should be a unifying win for America, for the DREAMers, and for justice.

Complicated Issues

There are lots of people with solid opinions on this issue. I have my own view, which is connected to my support of the Evangelical Immigration Table, calling for immigration reform.

But there are complicated issues here that make it harder to agree on how to make this right.

First, President Obama went about the creation of DACA the wrong way. We can argue all day about why he did so—Congress’ failure to act or his unhelpful overreach on Executive Orders. (I think both are at work here.)

But in the end, we are where we are.

We can be angry with President Trump, but ultimately it is Congress, not the President, that is given the constitutional authority to legislate so as to preserve a healthy balance of power between the various branches of the federal government.

Sure, we must consider what motivated the former President to legislate from the Oval Office in the first place. I believe that Obama was simply frustrated with Congress. They had failed to muster the courage to pass the necessary legislation themselves so the former President resolved to get the job done the best way he knew how: through executive action.

I share many American’s frustrations with a president’s overt overreach of Presidential power. ...