The 3 questions I must ask illegals

I try to do the right thing, and that gets progressively more difficult in an America that seems genuinely confused about what is “right.”

No, not the assertion that men can give birth. That is absurd on its face, not matter how many wokesters believe it.

DACA protesters at U.S. Capitol (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

I’m talking about a recent court ruling that President Barack Obama’s executive order protecting “Dreamers” was unconstitutional, but allowed it to stand.  

Imagine for a second the courts had found some state’s voting regulation unconstitutional, but allowed it to continue.

It’s hard to imagine something illegal being allowed to continue unmolested.

Obama’s “Dreamers” handiwork, which I support and will explain why in a minute, is better known as DACA — and it has been controversial and challenged since Obama signed it in 2014.

More than controversial, it was ruled illegal last year,   and not for the first time, although that judge said nothing about the order should be changed. Cuckoo. As was true in the past. Cuckoo, cuckoo.

See why I am confused about what is right?

Knowing DACA had been successfully challenged, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order reversing Obama’s.

A judge ruled Trump did not have the authority to reverse Obama’s order.

So Obama had the executive authority to write the order — that we now know was illegal — but Trump did not have the authority to cancel it. Cuckoo.

But it was the previous  Supreme Court that voted 5-4 against Trump. Would today’s?

And, yes, I know this issue is a lot more complicated. And Congress could fix it, but won’t. 

You could spend all day reading stories on court rulings about Obama’s great leap forward. I am giving you a fair summary in broad strokes.

Getting back to why I support DACA.

When dealing with illegal immigrants, I ask three questions:

1- Did you come here voluntarily?

2- Did you know you were breaking U.S. law?

3- Did you think there would be consequences?

The answer to 1- for adult illegals, is they came here voluntarily.

For 2, they knew they were breaking the law. That’s why they hide in the woodwork.

And 3, yes, they knew there would be consequences, also why they hide.

But DACA — they were brought here as children. It was not voluntary on their part and they should not be punished because of the illegal activity by their parents. That’s not how our justice system works.

They should be allowed to stay, although I know that opens the doors for pleading that their parents should not be deported.

How will they take care of themselves? goes the anguished pleas, because the illegals’ advocates always seek to pluck the heart strings of good-natured Americans. They weaponize our sympathy and turn it against our law.

But that’s a different issue. The kids should be allowed to stay. And if it takes the Supreme Court to decide that, I hope that will happen to cease the endless judicial nonsense. I’d like to know we do what is right.

14 thoughts on “The 3 questions I must ask illegals”

  1. Stu, I believe DACA is a moral and humane policy that we should adopt. I also believe that presidents don’t have the authority to adopt it without authorization from Congress. Separation of powers is often inconvenient and inefficient, but we have it to prevent the kind of tyranny we see in Russia.

  2. HAPPY MONDAY !!!
    pallie,
    Why pick a topic that’s easy to digest? Go right for the jugular !
    Illegals have always been part of our culture. For the most part, there was no problem. Then along comes the 21st century and all hell broke loose. Does anyone eve ask Congress why they have not addressed the illegal immigrant issue ? There are people in the House and Senate that have years of (?) service to our country. Were they ever asked questions about the border crossings ? I would think that had they been asked, somehow they would skirt the issues and quickly leave the area.
    You do realize that the illegals are more than people from South America ? Workers, students and vacationers have been coming here for years. All for the sake of discussion – legal. Then they stay past their legal visa without applying for an extension. That makes them illegal. Marrying to avoid deportation is also illegal. They all stay. They have been here for decades and into the next generation.
    That is why, IMHO, that the question remains unanswered. Where do we draw the line and start fresh ? Obama tried. Congress could of – should of took it further but as usual, no talk, no action.
    You have always put America first on this subject. You gave everyone something to think about. Our elected officials should look at your proposals and get the talks going. Give us a constitutional law that will solve this problem. Include the borders and the penalties and add plenty of teeth to the law.
    Tony

    1. Illegals have been a problem at least since the ‘50s when they were called wetbacks. Ike acted, but not enough. Reagan acted in the ‘80s, but got backstabbed by Dems who promised reform and then reneged.

  3. DACA is a Catch-22 dilemma for the kids brought to the US. However, most of the parents knew they were breaking the law but were also hopeful that a generous nation would understand their plight. In today’s world, The economic strain on our country is draining our national budget. NYC’s Mayor has declared a State of Emergency due to overwhelming demand for services (housing, health care) for the recently transported immigrants from Texas. Under current conditions with hyper inflation upon us it is prudent to shift the economic burden of the immigrants to their home county. The immigrants can apply for asylum from their home country.

    1. Yes, the illegals count on the soft hearts of many Americans. It has worked in the past, but now the numbers are so large, it will blow back against them.

  4. I find it fascinating that a country that is literally nothing BUT immigrants has historically always been anti-immigration and fearful of immigrants, to the point of not helping Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany back in the 1930s and 1940s. Stu is right on the Dreamers issue, period.

    1. The average American has been pro immigrant. It is a bedrock value. However, there have been periods when some immigrants were not welcome.
      I fear the current wave of illegals is building negative opinion against ALL immigrants.

  5. Just a clarification and a couple comments. DACA stands only for those already enrolled. No more can be enrolled. So, the program is over except for those already in it. This is not an odd result. Imagine if you had been given a building permit and built a house. But then your neighbor sues, claiming that the permit was not authorized. There is a lot of back and forth in the courts for years because you have a colorable, though not ultimately winning argument that the permit was just fine. In the meantime, a new zoning board is elected that revokes the original permit and orders your house demolished. The question then is, should you be forced to tear down the house, that, say, you have put your life’s savings into and is the only place you have to live? A court would say, no, but nobody else will henceforth be allowed to have a similar permit. Courts call this a “reliance interest” that they do take into account in making their decisions, particularly in the area of deciding whether a rule of law is to take effect retrospectively or only prospectively.

    Thus, I assume that your statement “Imagine for a second the courts had found some state’s voting regulation unconstitutional, but allowed it to continue” was intended to be ironic. When the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on redistricting, they did it because it was too close to the election to rejigger the districts again–but the four dissenting justices were inclined to overturn it. SCOTUS did the same thing with some Voting Rights Act challenges. Again a problem of reliance interests, or as Gorsuch put it: ““Running elections statewide is extraordinarily complicated and difficult. Those elections require enormous advance preparations by state and local officials, and pose significant logistical challenges”–though this related to racial, not partisan gerrymandering and the Alabama case that was just argued. The case won’t be about this election, but whether the map may stay in place for the next election. Presumably, the Pa. map for this election could be thrown out for the next election as well. But neither result would nullify this year’s election.

    Of course one can disagree with a particular legal ruling or the importance of a particular reliance interest. In overturning Roe v Wade, the Court said the reliance interest was an insufficient basis to sustain it–on the other hand it did not mandate that all women and doctors who had or performed abortions during its sway could be immediately prosecuted for their now suddenly illegal acts.

    1. Good points, Tom. But when the court ruled it was too close to election, that was understandable. There was no such issue with DACA, which, yes, is closed now.

  6. Three questions I want to ask illegal immigrants:
    1. Which Democrat will you vote for?
    2. How easy was it to get government (i.e., taxpayer) money?
    3. When will you learn English?

  7. I think the immigration issue is a lot like climate change. One group of people deny that it is even a problem, and another group of people want to impose immediate draconian remedies on the grounds that otherwise we face an apocalypse.

    Most people are in between. They want to avoid the anticipated bad results without tossing the baby out with the bathwater. I, for one, am not in favor of ripping babies from their mothers’ arms, never to be reunited again, in order to discourage immigration. And, while Stu seems to praise Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback” there were a good number of folks with work permits who were deported anyway–the estimate I saw was 1%, but that’s still over 10,000 people. In any event, Obama deported more folks, 3 million during his term of office, than Eisenhower did in his operation (about 1.3 million), and the lefties were angry, dubbing Obama “deporter-in-chief.” (For example, see https://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/national-council-of-la-raza-janet-murguia-barack-obama-deporter-in-chief-immigration-104217–it was 2 million at the time of this story, and 3 million at the end of his term). This was through ordinary law enforcement. Obama’s plan seemed to be the mirror-image of Reagan’s: up border security and immigration enforcement in exchange for an immigration reform compromise from the GOP. That time it was the GOP that blew that up. Then, of course, Trump had the opportunity to trade DACA for more border security, including some funding for his wall, and he blew that up, shutting down the government instead. There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama remains the all-time “deporter-in-chief.” Should be a MAGA hero. Given the tough enforcement, the illegal immigrant population had gone down steadily since its peak under Bush in 2007. But the Dems, instead of saying “What are you talking about, we’ve steadily reduced the “undocumented” for years” yelled “racist” instead. Even weirder, deportations under Trump actually went down, not up, and the illegal migrant population went up, not down.

    The reason deportations went down under Trump seems to be due in part to the backlash to anti-immigrant rhetoric, opposition to the popular DACA, the adoption of intentional cruelty as a national policy, the quasi-racist overtones and a not a few–often antisemitic–immigration conspiracy theories that were popularized, a couple of which resulted in mass murder. Trump eliminated the express position of the Obama administration of prioritizing illegals who committed crimes (altho migrant advocates claimed Obama deviated from this practice), to go after illegals, period–in other words, families, and folks with jobs or businesses who evoke a lot more sympathy than criminals. Not surprisingly, the apparent ugly assault on immigration resulted in “sanctuary cities” expanding–there’ve been such entities since 1971–as well as increased community push-back and less-welcoming attitudes toward ICE agents in many contexts, including the courts.

    I see the GOP blunder on this issue as similar to the stupidity of “Defund the Police.” I doubt very much that anyone would argue that there is no room for improvement in police training and practices, such as ways to effectively restrain someone without kneeling on their neck or choking them ’til they’re dead, checking and double-checking addresses before executing guns-drawn no-knock warrants, and hey, maybe a bit of training on how to deal with folks in mental health crises besides shooting them, not to mention, perhaps, increased civilian oversight and expanded community policing programs. But no, instead proposing reasonable ways to mitigate problems, it’s “Defund the Police” causing folks toss all that out the window. It’s always the extremes that ruin everything for everyone else. Same thing goes for people railing against immigration.

    Of course Stu is right. We have a finite capacity to take people in. On the other hand, the American people are kind, want to be humane, and are, for the most part, opposed to racism and discrimination. It follows that we need a humane, unbigoted method to limit illegal immigration and deport, or, in appropriate cases such as DACA, provide a path to citizenship. In this era of polarization, it looks unattainable, but I am optimistic. As problems pile up, they will be eventually be addressed. We ended slavery and Jim Crow, we won WWII and the Cold War, we lived through the Great Depression and 9/11. Maybe I’m the only American Exceptionalist left, who believes in the adaptability of democracy and the fundamental strength of the American people and our ideals. Folks have been saying we are headed somewhere in the proverbial handbasket since the founding. Me, I say, the Republic will survive. We have our problems, false starts, sins, errors and even crimes, but as Churchill once observed: “The Americans always do the right thing–after trying everything else first.” My prediction would be someone championing DACA, immigration reform and immigration enforcement will do the job. No extremist on either side can pull it off. Stu for president?

    1. HAPPY WEDNESDAY !!!
      Tom,
      Apparently, you are a bit of a night owl. You rightly stated our immigration history. What do you say to: following the laws that are in place as of today? Closing the borders, preventing illegals from entering the country, thus letting Mexico be responsible for the problems that they are ignoring. That’s a tall order, I understand, but you as an attorney know that we have laws in place for a reason. As you also know, allowing these illegals into the country are putting a strain on services that are already overloaded. Education, housing and health are three of the big expenses. Our own poor continue to suffer as we allow more impoverished to come under this current open door policy.
      I have said many times that the problems are where they originate from – the countries of origin. For decades, monies have just been thrown to these third world nations without any form of responsibility attached. Trump saw this problem and started to correct the mess.
      As you so rightly stated. We are a compassionate people. Stu speaks from the head with a little heart thrown in. He’s not presidential material, but I would consider him for a cabinet position. A very complicated problem that will take years to correct and billions to see it through.
      Tony

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