Pirate's Cove

This should be very simple: we’ve been told time and time again that the “Dreamers” who were brought to the U.S. as children shouldn’t be punished for the sins of the parents. If it’s being admitted that the parents “sinned”, ie, knowingly entering the United States in contradiction to the law, then the parents must pay the penalty. They should have to self-deport prior to any legal status is given to their children

Immigration Talks Stymied By Question Of What To Do About ‘Dreamers’ Parents

The Senate is slated to begin a floor debate early next week on some kind of an immigration bill, though what exactly will be included in that bill remains a mystery. Lawmakers meeting nearly every day to hammer out a compromise say they have yet to reach consensus on any piece of the puzzle, from how many young immigrants known as Dreamers will be granted a path to citizenship to how much funding will go to building new walls on the U.S.-Mexico border to what changes, if any, will be made to the nation’s legal immigration system. Amid this tangle of issues, several senators have told TPM, one piece has emerged as particularly difficult: the status of Dreamers’ parents.

“That’s where I think most of the disagreement comes from,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told reporters. “If you’re going to have the DACA kids addressed, you’re going to have to find a way to address the parents. And you cannot simply say, ‘Well, since you brought your kids in illegally, this gives you a leg up on all the millions of other people who are in line waiting to get in here who have not violated the law. That’s the issue.”

It shouldn’t be. They broke the law. It’s being admitted they broke the law. We would we reward them? Obviously, because, for Democrats and a few Republicans, this is all about legalizing all illegal aliens. Not just the “Dreamers”. They do not care if this is bad for Americans. Bad for wages. Bad for low wage workers. If it displaces Americans from jobs. If it costs American citizens more money. If Americans have had their lives destroyed from identity theft. Nothing matters more than adding over ten million new voters who’ll voted Democrat.

“We’re still working on how we deal with their family members,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) told TPM as she entered an immigration negotiation meeting Monday night. “I think there’s a consensus that citizenship would not be part of that, for parents who brought them into the country against the law. But we’re working to try to figure out a way to make sure the Dreamers want to stay, because they’re not going to want their parents to be deported.”

I say “who cares what the “Dreamers” want?” People who are illegally present in our country do not get to choose nor dictate. People who get busted for petty theft do not get to choose their punishment, either. Nor are they rewarded for theft.

But several hardline Republicans in the House and Senate, many of whom also oppose President Trump’s call for a path to citizenship for Dreamers, say extending any form of legal status to parents would be intolerable.

“If you give legal status to the parents it undermines the entire rationale for the DACA program,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who broke his typical hallway silence to hold forth to reporters on the topic. “Children ought not to pay for the crimes of their parents, but surely the parents should pay for the crimes of their parents.”

“The people in the DACA program were brought here as minors through no fault of their own, before the age of accountability,” he added. “I think you can distinguish them from their parents or other illegal immigrants who made the decision to come here themselves.”

We’ll see if Republicans hold tough on this. If they allow the parents of the Dreamers to stay in the U.S. and get some sort of legal status, they’ll get mauled in the midterms, as Republicans will stay home. Furthermore, giving the parents legal status will simply open the floodgates to giving all the other illegals legal status, with voting citizenship the ultimate end point.

Interestingly, earlier in the article, Alice Olstein writes

The nearly 800,000 young immigrants who have been enrolled in President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program have never been able to sponsor any family members for legal status or citizenship. But if DACA holders are allowed to obtain green cards and eventually citizenship as part of a new immigration reform bill, they may in the future be able to do so.

And that’s exactly one of the reasons that chain migration needs to be ended.