OPINION:
The Democratic Party insists that all Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) candidates, some 800,000 of them, are all Rhodes Scholars working as apprentices at Dupont while putting Mom through medical school. Conservative critics quote statistics of over 50 percent not at high school fluency in English, and disproportionate crime involvement and welfare dependency.
The obvious solution to this conflict is a program to challenge objectively the claims of each. Pass a law, providing for the compassion of the Democratic claims (“brought by their parents, not of their own volition, contributing to our economy”), but accepting the reticence of conservatives to further encumber the taxpayers with new, permanent (voting) burdens on our economy. Apply a merit test to DACA recipients, and dispose of them accordingly.
My concept is something along the lines of classical legal immigrant wickets: Candidates should be law-abiding; good employment prospects (for the average 24-year old DACA candidate, there are tangible measures); can pass a civics test administered in English (something Wally Cleaver would have faced in 8th grade); and a loyalty declaration to their new country.
The proponents’ premise is that they are all contributing to our economy already. This should be an open-and-shut case with a huge success rate, if the DACA candidates are as described. And they should understand, given that civics appreciation, that this invitation only extends to their immediate family, as in spouse and children, not every 4th cousin and grand-uncle.
Candidates who apply covered in gang tattoos and with felony convictions should be given a controlled and swift one-way ticket, with no further preferential consideration.
ROBERT KLAUS
Amissville, Va.
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