OPINION:
Michael Reagan, son of America’s widely loved former president, Ronald Reagan, set the Twitter world on fire by saying his father wouldn’t boot out “dreamers.”
Perhaps not — but then again, neither is President Donald Trump.
The howlers in the media, however, want it believed otherwise.
Michael Reagan tweeted: “Fyi, my father would not kick the dreamers out of the US. He would find a way to work with Congress and lead.”
And now Reagan’s tweet, taken out of context of several others he put out on social media, can be used to feed the narrative of the left, which wants to paint Trump as the cowboy who’s riding into Illegal Town to lasso some cowering kids.
But take a deeper look at the White House’s stated fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It’s not exactly a booting.
Trump’s not exactly rounding up the DACAs and telling them to hit the outside-of-America roads.
Even CNN’s headline is accurate on this: “Trump ends DACA but gives Congress window to save it.”
That’s right.
The Department of Homeland Security is going to quit processing new DACA applications. But Congress has six months to come up with its own plan — as should have happened from the get-go.
Remember: DACA was shoved down America’s throat by Barack Obama’s unilateral action — an action he took because Congress didn’t do his amnesty bidding. So he went the solo route, a la king-like, and declared an open door for certain illegals.
Unconstitutional?
You bet. Even Obama himself, before he wore the White House Crown, admitted to political supporters he couldn’t lawfully take immigration matters into his own hands. Yet he did with DACA, giving 800,000 or so illegals a shelter from the deportation storm and an EZ Pass, albeit renewable two-year terms, to pursue careers and education while they raised their families.
As Trump said, while announcing intent to end this illegal program: “It is now time for Congress to act.”
That’s a law-and-order argument, nothing more, nothing less.
“As I’ve said before, we will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion — but through the lawful democratic process,” Trump said.
And his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, spelled out in greater detail the disaster that can come from failing to instill a law-and-order standard on matters tied to the border.
“To have a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest,” Sessions said at a press conference on the DACA decision, “we cannot admit everyone who would like to come here.”
And this is the part that’s pertinent — while sadly cast aside in much of the hysterical reporting about the fate of DACA: “If Congress chooses to make changes to [these] laws, to do so through the process set forth by our founders in a way that advances the interest of the nation,” then Congress can certainly do so, Sessions said.
Reagan went on in separate tweets to acknowledge that “Trump put the ball in the right court. The Congress,” and that “immigration issues belong with the Congress not with POTUS.”
And truly, that’s all Trump’s doing with DACA — reeling in the executive overreach of Obama days and putting a bit of a constitutional touch back on immigration.
The left is painting Trump as cruel, unhinged, crazed even. But his DACA directive? It’s simply common-sense constitutional — and therein lies the pro-amnesty left’s problem with it.
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