Pirate's Cove

Of course, in the world of folks like the Washington Post Editorial Board, pretty much everything makes them upset when it comes to Trump

Trump’s disgraceful use of ‘dreamers’ as a bargaining chip

AFTER ALL of President Trump’s bluster about his “great love” for “dreamers,” brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, it turns out he’s content to use them as leverage in a high-stakes game of political horse-trading. Mr. Trump seems willing to strip them of jobs, security and homes unless Democrats buckle on a range of Republican immigration priorities, including an even longer-standing object of the president’s ardor: a beautiful border wall.

This is just a continuation of the Democrats meme of a “clean” DACA bill, which gives illegal alien Dreamers some sort of legal status, which would primarily benefit Democrats, with no immigration security included.

It soon became apparent that Mr. Trump’s passion for his base, whose anti-immigrant fervor he stoked in the course of the 2016 campaign, exceeded his feelings for the dreamers. Prodded by White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a nativist hard-liner, Mr. Trump has made clear that his price for helping the dreamers is steep — not just the wall and additional funding for border security but also an overhaul of the immigration system to end family-based migration and the visa lottery, whose beneficiaries are mainly from developing nations.

That agenda is anathema to Democrats and would harm the country. It’s worth debating the merits of expanding visa quotas to allow more high-skilled and highly educated immigrants, but that’s not what the White House is pressing for. Rather, Mr. Trump is more interested in tearing down programs than building new ones. And, as he made clear, he now regards dreamers as a means to that end. Democrats, he said in a tweetlast week, are on notice that dreamers are out of luck “without the desperately needed WALL” and “an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration.” But the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program cannot and should not be the mechanism by which the United States’ immigration system is refurbished.

In other words, protecting the citizens of the United States from people who come here illegally/overstay their visas, along with bringing in relatives who do not speak the language, have few working skills, and won’t assimilate is “anathema to Democrats.” And by “harm the country”, the WPEB means ” harm the Democrats”, who’ve decided that illegal aliens come well before US citizens.

It is cute how suddenly the art of give and take in politics (and business) is “disgraceful.” Where politicians demand things in return for their votes on other things. Something which has always happened.

Similarly, though, remember all the editorials from the WPEB when Obama was holding businesses and statues and museums and parks hostage during the government shutdown that Obama caused? Me neither. That was disgraceful.

Democrats should be careful in their push for a “clean” DACA bill: they might become so shrill that Republicans, including Trump, decide to move on and not bother at this time. How would that help the Dreamers?

Crossed at Right Wing News.