Trump's expected repeal of Dreamer programme draws fire from business

[webfact]

Trump's expected repeal of Dreamer programme draws fire from business

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

 

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the White House after a trip to Springfield, Missouri, in Washington D.C., August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is expected to rescind an Obama administration policy that protects from deportation nearly 800,000 immigrants who as children entered the country illegally, setting the stage for a fight with U.S. business leaders and lawmakers over tough immigration policy.

 

A senior administration official told Reuters on Thursday that the plan could be announced as early as Friday and that Trump would let the so-called Dreamers stay until their work permits expire.

 

Trump has promised to crack down on illegal immigration to give more jobs to Americans. But business leaders say the Dreamers make important economic contributions and that ending the programme will hit economic growth and tax revenue.

 

The technology industry quickly mobilized opposition, as it did to Trump's travel ban in January for visitors from Muslim-majority countries. Microsoft Corp President Brad Smith said the country cannot afford to "lose the tremendous talent of these individuals."

 

On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers and a handful of Republicans urged Trump not to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), or "Dreamers" programme.

 

"@POTUS must uphold pledge 2 treat #DREAMers with “great heart” + give these young folks certainty 2 stay in US, the only country they know," U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who is Cuban-American, said on Twitter.

 

Trump, a Republican, had pledged on the election campaign trail to scrap all of Democratic former President Barack Obama's executive orders on immigration.

 

What to do about the so-called Dreamers has been actively debated within the White House and Trump administration. One senior administration official described the debate as a "tug of war" between factions in favour of the move and those opposed.

 

Officials, believing the DACA programme to be ultimately unconstitutional, want Congress to impose a legislative fix for the Dreamers, two officials said.

 

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters that Trump and his senior advisers were still reviewing the DACA programme and that the president not made a final decision on how to proceed.

 

Asked whether Trump still stood by a comment in February about treating Dreamers "with heart," Sanders said: "Absolutely, the president stands by his statement."

 

The overwhelming majority of the Dreamer immigrants came from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Over 200,000 of them live in California, while 100,000 are in Texas, which is struggling to recover from Hurricane Harvey. New York, Illinois and Florida also have large numbers of DACA recipients.

 

TECH SECTOR PREPARES PROTEST

 

Microsoft's Smith said in a blog post on Thursday that the company knows of 27 employees who are DACA beneficiaries, including software engineers, finance professionals and sales associates.

 

“These employees, along with other DREAMers, should continue to have the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to our country’s strength and prosperity,” Smith wrote.

 

In addition, a letter being circulated among tech companies obtained by Reuters expressed concern over the threatened demise of DACA, calling Dreamers vital to the economy. Several chief executives are expected to sign it, a source familiar with the situation said.

 

“With them, we grow and create jobs,” the letter said. “They are part of why we will continue to have a global competitive advantage.”

 

U.S. Representative Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican who is a centrist, announced on Twitter that he will attempt to force a vote on bipartisan legislation that would protect from deportation immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.

 

“#DACA participants grew up here, went to school here, and should be allowed to stay here. The time has come to take action,” Coffman wrote on Twitter.

 

Coffman introduced his bill earlier this year, along with Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez. It is a companion bill to legislation introduced in the Senate by the chamber’s number two Democrat, Dick Durbin, and Republican Lindsey Graham.

 

Ten Republican state attorneys general in June urged the Trump administration to rescind the DACA programme, while noting that the government did not have to revoke permits that had already been issued.

 

If the federal government did not withdraw DACA by Sept. 5, the attorneys general said they would file a legal challenge to the programme in a Texas federal court.

 

The effort was led by Texas and joined by state attorneys general in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.

 

Kayleigh Lovvorn, a spokeswoman for Texas attorney general, on Thursday said her office has no plans to push back the Sept. 5 date.

 

A larger coalition of 26 Republican attorneys general had challenged the Obama-era policy covering illegal immigrant parents, known as DAPA, that had been blocked by the courts before it took effect. The Department of Homeland Security rescinded that policy earlier this year.

 

Immigrants who entered the country illegally as children have been able to qualify for DACA if they were under the age of 31 when the programme began on June 15, 2012. They would have to have entered the United States before they turned 16, however, and to have lived continuously in the country since June 15, 2007.

 

(Additional reporting by Dan Levine and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Tom Brown and Mary Milliken)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-09-01

[darksidedog]

People who came as kids more than 10 years ago should not be threatened with deportation to a country where they may have no family or ties, or even speak the language. In many countries you can gain citizenship after just 4 years. How can you penalise a child for "illegally" entering the country, when they were brought there by mum and dad and had no say in the matter. This is mean, racist and wrong, may well be detrimental to the economy, and whose only purpose seems to be to keep Donalds racist supporters cheering.

[stevenl]

15 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

People who came as kids more than 10 years ago should not be threatened with deportation to a country where they may have no family or ties, or even speak the language. In many countries you can gain citizenship after just 4 years. How can you penalise a child for "illegally" entering the country, when they were brought there by mum and dad and had no say in the matter. This is mean, racist and wrong, may well be detrimental to the economy, and whose only purpose seems to be to keep Donalds racist supporters cheering.

No, the only purpose is to undo anything Obama has done.

[tonray]

"We gots to keep them ill-eagles out of our country, cuz thays whatz killing Merica !"

 

<deleted> bunch of backwoods rubes.....taken over our country...held hostage by idiots

[Scott]

Off-topic post removed.  

 

[Trouble]

There is a simple fix to most of the immigration problems in the US today.  Although Trump campaigned on this issue, I don't think he is entirely hell-bent on deporting everyone and we will see how that plays out.  I think most Americans would tolerate another amnesty IF the Congress would pass significant legislation that puts a stop to future illegal immigration. That could be done by clearly stating that henceforth no one entering the country illegally will every be granted citizenship or allowed to remain here, family or no family.  Further part of that legislation should be to state that no person who entered the country illegally will ever get the opportunity of citizenship. The best they can hope for is permanent resident status. Part of the legislation should be issuing national identity cards. The United States is probably the only country in the world that does not issue a national identity card.  The US needs to do that and issue a biometric card that identifies every person in the US as a legal citizen, permanent legal resident, temporary legal resident, etc. That way businesses know whether they are hiring someone here legally or illegally.  It would also take care of any idea that there is voting fraud thus solving two problems. Only people with the right color card get to vote. Next deport all illegals convicted of serious felonies regardless of family ties and make it clear that persons here as legal residents on green cards will be deported if they commit a serious felony (after they do their time). The US does not need to feed its prison systems with serious felons. Next build the wall or use whatever means necessary to put a stop to illegal border crossings. No one really cares whether it is a wall or a million man security force to stop the problem. Also set in place a system to go after visa overstayers. Finally straighten out the immigration laws and make a fair system for people to immigrate legally.  This idea of trying to keep families together is ludicrous.  A US citizen marries a foreigner, the foreigner has old parents that then can qualify ahead of other people waiting. They then qualify for Social Security and health care and become nothing but a drain on the taxpayer.  These types of exceptions to the overall polices only create inequity in the system.  The system needs to be fair to those who are waiting the long years to come to the US and not bypass them because someone who gets here legally then figures a way to get the whole family here.  It is the unwillingness of the Congress to take logical and rational steps to fix the system.  Unfortunately to fix the system and make it work, somewhere along the line it is going to hurt someone, but think of all the people submitting their paperwork, waiting years and getting bypassed because the system is not fixed.  The last question the US must ask itself is how many people it can take a year and absorb into its culture. We have already seen that there is a large immigration of certain groups and not of others. This creates nothing but ethnic ghettos in many of our cities which is not necessarily a healthy way to have an integrated society.  All these things should be open for debate on both sides of the issue.  But allowing people who willfully violate the law to become citizens while pushing aside thousands of others who follow the rules and have to wait years is stupid.  Most Americans want to be fair but at this point are pissed off by the ineptness of the government to do anything about the invasion that has taken place since Reagan's last Amnesty.   Mostly the blame can be tied to the divide in Congress and their inability to even talk to each other about rational plans to overcome problems.  Trumps campaign rhetoric is only the boiling over of a problem. He is not the cause of the problem. 

[Scott]

A National Identity Card is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.   The conservatives, and a number of liberals, don't want the gov't being able to track people quite that easily.  

[Watchful]

Problem with Dreamer Program is it will be totally tossed out by the courts. Trump and Obama before him do not have the authority to set US immigration policy. This must be codified in US law - not POTUS orders/edicts.

 

Trump can order immigration to ease up on dreamers and focus more elsewhere, but the issuing of cards and work permits will be deemed unconstitutional.  

 

This is where Congress should earn it's pay and hammer something out. Something neither side will be happy with, but that both sides could reluctantly support.

Edited September 1, 2017 by Watchful

[pegman]

2 hours ago, Scott said:

A National Identity Card is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.   The conservatives, and a number of liberals, don't want the gov't being able to track people quite that easily.  

Same goes in Canada. 

[Grouse]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2w1g-idt-8U

Edited September 1, 2017 by Grouse
Just to cheer you up!

[inThailand]

If they are illegally in the USA, what's wrong with deporting them? Get legal, pay your taxes, etc like the rest of the country or you will be deported. Legal parents get your illegal children legal or they will suffer the same consequences.

Why can't some common sense prevail?

[Jingthing]

20 minutes ago, inThailand said:

If they are illegally in the USA, what's wrong with deporting them? Get legal, pay your taxes, etc like the rest of the country or you will be deported. Legal parents get your illegal children legal or they will suffer the same consequences.

Why can't some common sense prevail?

They grew up as Americans. Deporting them is inhumane. There's your common sense, dude. 

[inThailand]

10 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

They grew up as Americans. Deporting them is inhumane. There's your common sense, dude. 

So do the American thing and become legal, or get out.

[Jingthing]

2 minutes ago, inThailand said:

So do the American thing and become legal, or get out.

They really can't. 

Their parents brought them in illegally and then they grew up.

Sometimes they didn't even know until they went for things like driver's licenses. 

There is generally no realistic path for them to become citizens.

There should be and they should not be deported either. 

To send them out is basically sending them to a country (and often language) that they don't know. That's OK if they might CHOOSE that, as citizens that freely expatriate do. But deporting them is cruel. 

 

Edited September 1, 2017 by Jingthing

[inThailand]

They are illegal, they have no visa, no green card (work permit), and are not US citizens.

Even LOS requires one of these to stay here.

What's unreasonable about this?

[Jingthing]

2 minutes ago, inThailand said:

They are illegal, they have no visa, no green card (work permit), and are not US citizens.

Even LOS requires one of these to stay here.

What's unreasonable about this?

They were brought in as children. Their parents consciously broke the law. The children were innocent. Then the children grew up. We're talking about U.S. immigration, not Thailand. Stop trying to deflect.

What's unreasonable? Sending people that are basically Americans except for a piece of paper to a foreign country they don't even know against their will. 

[inThailand]

Just now, Jingthing said:

They were brought in as children. Their parents consciously broke the law. The children were innocent. Then the children grew up. We're talking about U.S. immigration, not Thailand. Stop trying to deflect.

What's unreasonable? Sending people that are basically Americans except for a piece of paper to a foreign country they don't even know against their will. 

They are illegal, what's so hard to understand why they should be deported?

 

Responsible parents would have taken care of their children and now as adults they can fix their own problem, if they want too.

[Scott]

In some cases, including a man was 80+ years old, who was brought to the US as a child from Canada, he didn't know he was not a US citizen.   I believe they were trying to deport him.   His parents got US citizenship, but never applied for him.  

 

Some of those brought as children have parents who are now deceased.   Many of them have no connection with anyone in their home country.  

 

You can't exactly 'get yourself legal' if you are illegal and in the US, any more than you can sort of settle things in Thailand if you're caught on overstay.  

 

There is a certain burden of responsibility on the part of the gov't to assist these people in helping to sort out their immigration status. 

[WaywardWind]

9 hours ago, Trouble said:

They then qualify for Social Security and health care and become nothing but a drain on the taxpayer.

Under the scenario that you present - US citizen marries a foreigner, and then sponsors the foreigner's parents for immigration - the spouse would be eligible for US Social Security and Medicare based on the US citizen's work record, but the parents would not. They do not receive any Social Security benefits; they can buy in to Medicare but at rather steep rates.

[selftaopath]

5 hours ago, inThailand said:

So do the American thing and become legal, or get out.

If there were no undocumented workers who would 45 hire to work in his various ventures? 

[WaywardWind]

5 hours ago, inThailand said:

So do the American thing and become legal, or get out.

People in their position have almost no path to becoming legal, either through permanent residency or citizenship, no matter how long they are in the US or how hard they try to do the right thing.

 

What part of that is so difficult for you to grasp?

[joecoolfrog]

8 hours ago, pegman said:

Same goes in Canada. 

Ditto the UK

[Scott]

The requirements for being included in the program are fairly strict.  

 

I saw an interview with a young lady, a school teacher, in Arizona who is a Dreamer.   She has a University degree in education a full-time teacher, in a state with an extreme teacher shortage.  

 

A lovely young lady who know no other country than the US.  

 

I have a hard time believing that anybody wouldn't consider her an asset to the country.  

[Jingthing]

People in their position have almost no path to becoming legal, either through permanent residency or citizenship, no matter how long they are in the US or how hard they try to do the right thing.
 
What part of that is so difficult for you to grasp?

Don't bother. Some people are so extremely anti foreigner that they don't even want to understand the facts.

[inThailand]

17 hours ago, WaywardWind said:

People in their position have almost no path to becoming legal, either through permanent residency or citizenship, no matter how long they are in the US or how hard they try to do the right thing.

 

What part of that is so difficult for you to grasp?

Kinda like Thailand. A visa or a work permit is a viable alternative. 

Edited September 2, 2017 by inThailand
fat fingers

[Jingthing]

1 minute ago, inThailand said:

Kinda like Thailan. So a visa or a work permit is a viable option. 

Not like Thailan. 

[inThailand]

Even on TV many have reported that their child brought to Thailand never needed a visa or other until a certain age to stay here. Even LOS makes a illegal child become legal.

Edited September 2, 2017 by inThailand
fat fingers

[WaywardWind]

3 hours ago, inThailand said:

Kinda like Thailand. A visa or a work permit is a viable alternative. 

Do you have ANY understanding of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program?

 

I sincerely doubt it, because you would recognize that enrollment in DACA provides limited legal residency (and ability to work) to individuals who qualify for admission. 

 

You said earlier that they should become legal, which is exactly what they are right now, and what the Trump administration wants to strip away.

[inThailand]

DACA was created to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants if they came here as a child before 2007. These illegal immigrants all who are now 20 years or older were given a special status. Why are they special? The fact is, they are illegal immigrants protected for political gain. 

[Credo]

46 minutes ago, inThailand said:

DACA was created to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants if they came here as a child before 2007. These illegal immigrants all who are now 20 years or older were given a special status. Why are they special? The fact is, they are illegal immigrants protected for political gain. 

No, they are not illegal immigrants.   They have, for now, permission to stay in remain in the country.   They MUST meet certain criteria to remain in DACA.   

 

They arrived in the US when they were underage and so most of them did not have a say in coming here.   It was a decision made by their parents, usually.