Pirate's Cove

The Washington Post Editorial Board is no fan of a border wall. Though I’d bet that the majority of that august body have fences/walls around their mansions. However, they’ve seen the writing on the wall, pun intended, that they won’t get a “clean” DACA bill (hey, here’s a recommendation: a clean DACA bill that allows them 3 years to wrap up their affairs and self deport), so, how about legalization for the Wall?

How to get to yes on a deal for the ‘dreamers’

PRESIDENT TRUMP has laid out a framework for immigration reform. It can’t be the final answer, but it contains the elements of an imaginable deal. Legislators who want to get to yes should seize on those elements and start working.

One key to success between now and Feb. 8, the deadline Congress has set for itself, is not to try to solve the entire immigration conundrum. A grand bargain is certainly imaginable at some point. Democrats would get legal status for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country in exchange for stricter limits on, and some changes in the nature of, immigration going forward. But there’s no way that bargain can be achieved in the next couple of weeks.

Whoa! Now they’ve jumped the gun and are looking for a pathway for 11 million other illegals. No one is talking about that. I’m not sure why all the things in Trump’s framework can’t be included.

What is imaginable is a smaller-scale deal: safe harbor for the “dreamers” in exchange for Mr. Trump’s wall. That’s not a deal we love, for two reasons. One is that everyone, including Mr. Trump, claims to support a pathway to citizenship for the dreamers, the undocumented immigrants who were brought here as young children through no fault of their own. Why should they be a bargaining chip at all?

You’re right, let’s not use them as a bargaining chip, let’s just enforce federal law and deport them. For those yammering on about bargaining chips, might want to reconsider that talking point, because things could go the other way. You can’t strongarm Trump. Regardless, despite not liking the wall and thinking it’s value is low, the WPEB is willing to exchange it for the 1.8 million illegals who were in DACA and might possibly have been eligible for DACA but never applied.

In return, Mr. Trump is asking too much and overplaying his hand. In addition to a $25 billion “trust fund” for hundreds of miles of new wall and other border security measures, Mr. Trump wants a sharp contraction in family-based immigration, the mechanism by which most legal immigrants entered the United States for the past half-century; an end to the visa lottery that admits 50,000 immigrants annually from countries underrepresented in U.S. immigration; and a massive enforcement crackdown that would target not only undocumented immigrants who are long-term residents of this country, but also asylum seekers, including children, who are fleeing violence and oppression.

A pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million illegals, one which doesn’t even punish the people who brought the kids illegally, is worth a lot more than Trump is asking for. He’s certainly not overplaying his hand. Democrats should be careful in this line of attack, because Trump and the GOP controlled Congress could simply move on from DACA if Democrats caterwaul too much.

Congress should schedule all those proposals for debate this spring, along with a pathway to legality for 11 million illegal immigrants, plus protections for the more than 200,000 Haitians, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans whose temporary protected status has been revoked by the administration.

But in the next 10 days, it should do something simple and constructive: dreamers for the wall.

No. And double no for legalization for 11 million more illegal aliens.