I’m not sure what’s the wisest course of action for the Republicans to take regarding DACA. But I do know the critical moral and legal issues at work. We can’t afford to concede those to the open borders, anti-American left. If we do, we guarantee that pro-choice Democrats will turn every red state purple or blue. (Remember that California once elected Ronald Reagan. Imagine the U.S. if Texas turns blue.) Much more than that. By giving up our sovereignty, we lose our country.

DACA is an executive quasi-amnesty for young illegal aliens. Barack Obama decreed it in the teeth of the U.S. Constitution and valid laws. DACA gave green cards to illegal immigrants whose parents had brought them here while they were minors. As Trump said in his statement:

In June of 2012, President Obama bypassed Congress to give work permits, social security numbers, and federal benefits to approximately 800,000 illegal immigrants currently between the ages of 15 and 36. The typical recipients of this executive amnesty, known as DACA, are in their twenties. Legislation offering these same benefits had been introduced in Congress on numerous occasions and rejected each time.

In referencing the idea of creating new immigration rules unilaterally, President Obama admitted that “I can’t just do these things by myself” – and yet that is exactly what he did, making an end-run around Congress and violating the core tenets that sustain our Republic.

Officials from 10 States are suing over the program, requiring my Administration to make a decision regarding its legality. The Attorney General of the United States, the Attorneys General of many states, and virtually all other top legal experts have advised that the program is unlawful and unconstitutional and cannot be successfully defended in court.

There can be no path to principled immigration reform if the executive branch is able to rewrite or nullify federal laws at will.

Do You Want to Kill the “Dream”?

Open borders politicians and leaders of emptying churches eager to fill their dusty pews all agree: The DACA constituency is a political winner. They want to make its benefits permanent via the craftily-named “Dream Act.” Quite a propaganda coup, that title. They’ve even got “neutral” reporters referring to these illegal immigrants as “Dreamers.” 

Now if you oppose the Act, you’re basically against the American Dream. Maybe Martin Luther King’s dream, too. In fact, you’re probably a racist. And you know what happens to them, don’t you? They lose their jobs and never work again. So get with the program. (Nice career you’ve got there. It’d be a real shame if something were to happen to it. I’m just sayin’. …)

First You Surrender, Then We Negotiate

The president is right. He notes that young English-speakers with jobs are a very low priority for deportation. Politically, this is the toughest hill for immigration skeptics to take. Leading with it would be like pro-lifers starting every TV ad by denouncing a rape exception. Yes, in the long run we recognize that all unborn lives deserve protection. But we’re not going to start there. In fact, we’ll start with partial birth and other third-trimester atrocities. Likewise, on immigration we’ll round up the drug dealers and rapists first. But we can’t concede the underlying principle. That amounts to starting off a battle by surrendering.

700 million people want to leave their native countries. 165 million would head for America.

No, illegal immigration is not as grave an evil as abortion. But it is evil. If we don’t insist on that, it’s over. Not just the argument, but America. We will have taken out an eraser and wiped out our country’s borders. We’ll have waved the whole world in. That’s what some leftist radicals and woolly-headed churchmen are asking us to do. Why else do they denounce every single enforcement effort ever attempted? Why offer church facilities as “sanctuaries” for illegals?

165 Million Want to Come to America

According to the Gallup Poll, some 700 million people around the world want to leave their native countries. That is “more than the entire adult population of North and South America combined.” But relax, relax. Only 165 million of those want to come to America, Gallup reassures us. They would make up half our population. Since most are poor and would qualify, they’d bankrupt every social program we have in a matter of months.

Nor will fans of unlimited immigration talk about the massive organized crime rings that virtually govern large swaths of Mexico. They run the immigrant smuggling rings, which means they can walk right across our unsecured border.

Here are some stark, honest questions you should ask of anyone who claims that young illegal immigrants (aka “Dreamers”) have a moral right to stay in America. That it would be “inhumane” or “immoral” or “un-Christian” to send them home:

• Do we have the right to say “No” to any of those 165 million people?
• If so, based on what? Our national interest, maybe?
• Are we allowed to seek the best interests of America, even if it inconveniences foreign citizens whose presence here breaks our laws?
• If parents steal something of value and give it to their kids, do they get to keep it, because they’re innocent? If that applies to the trust funds Bernie Madoff set up for his grandchildren, why not to U.S. citizenship?
• We can only accept a finite number of immigrants. So how many Middle Eastern Christian refugees or Korean physicists who followed the legal immigration rules do you want to turn away? You know, to make room for these kids whose parents broke the law?

Maybe They Can Stay, But at a Price

Fred Bauer of National Review smartly analyzes the GOP’s political options for defending our national interest. It might be smart politics to offer amnesty to these illegals as part of hard-nosed negotiations. The end result we seek? It’s laid out nicely in The Stream‘s recent “grand bargain” proposal on immigration. Given that most of these illegal immigrants speak English, and we spent money educating them, it might even be good policy to keep them. If it yielded us border security, mandatory e-Verify at every workplace, and other crucial reforms, the compromise could be worth it. But the Dream Act shouldn’t pass until the last guard tower is finished on top of the Wall.

The left, and the churches it has captured, will fight us tooth and nail to make sure that we cave on DACA and the Dream Act, and in return get nothing whatsoever.

Activists who react to any enforcement of our immigration laws as if it were the round-up of Cherokees for the Trail of Tears love this issue. The illegals who benefit from DACA are what defense attorneys call “dreamboat clients.” They were brought here without their consent. Their parents sinned. They didn’t. They have mostly learned English. Most consider themselves Americans. And all they’re asking for is a chance to work. To contribute. Isn’t that what America’s all about? (Cue “Fanfare for the Common Man” in the background.)

Cue the World’s Tiniest Violin

Most people don’t make decisions based on principles or logic. They follow their hearts, which media know how to prick until they bleed. We will see endless TV segments about “Dreamers” who saved little kittens from drowning. Who are studying calculus at Harvard. Who invented home-made time machines which they used to go back and save JFK. Or something.

Granting amnesty, any amnesty, in the absence of border security is a giant boost to the human traffickers. But that won’t make the news.

We won’t hear about the human trafficking rings that profit from smuggling in immigrants like their parents — when they don’t leave them dead in the desert. We won’t hear about the “rape trees” that stand all along our southern border, with the clothes of immigrant victims. Granting amnesty, any amnesty, in the absence of border security is a giant boost to their deadly business. But that won’t make the news.

Nor will fans of unlimited immigration talk about the massive organized crime rings that virtually govern large swaths of Mexico. They run the immigrant smuggling rings, which means they can walk right across our unsecured border. As the Center for Immigration Studies reveals, DACA

provides amnesty from serious job-related felonies and other crimes committed by DACA-eligible illegal aliens (often called Dreamers) and their employers while providing no assistance to the American citizen victims of their crimes.

Here’s a listing, courtesy of Breitbart, of 25 criminal suspects who would benefit from DACA/ the “DREAM” Act in the state of Texas alone. Let me just quote my favorite, because it’s so “intersectional,” combining so many “victim” groups in a single police blotter item:

DREAMer Allegedly Helped Drag Queen Smuggle Illegal Aliens in Texas

Juan Valdez Molina, an illegal alien protected by DACA, was accused by Texas authorities of helping a drag queen smuggle illegal aliens across the U.S.-Mexico Border, Breitbart Texas reported. For his alleged part in the human smuggling conspiracy, Valdez was expected to be paid $1,000.

I’m not sure if Juan Valdez is guilty. But I know he won’t get mentioned on CNN.