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DACA

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'I'm gonna be sent back to a country that I've never been to and I'm gonna lose every opportunity that I have.'

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The Donald's renewed romance with old pals (and donees) " Chuck and Nancy " is already paying more dividends . . . for Democrats. If the president's tweet on Thursday morning is to be believed (not always a sure thing), he has fully adopted the unconstitutional distortion of prosecutorial discretion employed by President Obama to avoid executing the laws faithfully.

Substance aside, the appearance of the tweet is a story unto itself. Trump was so giddy over sandbagging congressional Republicans and his own Treasury secretary that he called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday morning to gloat about the positive news coverage - squealing, " The press has been incredible!" Smitten, he wanted to explore other potential areas of appeasement - er, I mean, bipartisan cooperation. This should go well: An all-id-all-the-time POTUS, who cares far more about media commentary than policy, rediscovers that nothing floats the MSM boat quite like a nominal Republican who accommodates Democrats while humiliating his party in the process. Can't you just feel him evolving!

While she had the infatuated president's ear, the New York Times relates:

Ms. Pelosi took the opportunity to ask Mr. Trump to send out a message on Twitter emphasizing that the 800,000 immigrants enrolled in a program that he canceled this week can keep their protection from deportation and work permits over the next six months as it phases out.

That program, of course, is DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Contrary to the Gray Lady's assertion - and as we explained this week - Trump has not canceled DACA. Nor is it being phased out. Trump has signaled that either it will be codified in law or he will continue the program by lawless executive action - as he is doing for the next six months, as he has done for the last eight months, and as his predecessor did for four years.

In any event, as Nancy tells it, "I asked him to do it. Then boom, boom, boom! The tweet appeared and that was good." You can see why she'd say that. Trump tweeted:

For all of those (DACA) that are concerned about your status during the 6 month period, you have nothing to worry about - No action!

Translation: There is no daylight between Trump and Obama when it comes to ignoring the president's constitutional duty to execute laws faithfully under the guise of prosecutorial discretion.

To repeat, properly understood, prosecutorial discretion is simply a resource-allocation doctrine. It is an unremarkable recognition of the fact that there are more violations of law than there are law-enforcement assets to investigate and prosecute them. The government has no choice but to prioritize: Serious crimes get the most attention; many less serious crimes, for the most part, are overlooked. But there's a caveat: While a low priority is assigned to comparatively less serious crimes, they are still considered crimes. The government evaluates each case individually and reserves the right to take action against the low-priority misconduct in appropriate cases - for example, in a case involving a recidivist offender or an otherwise hardcore criminal.

The point of decreeing DACA was not to exercise prosecutorial discretion; it was to confer de facto amnesty on a class of DREAMers, as the president - not Congress - defined them.

That was not Obama's practice. He disingenuously invoked "prosecutorial discretion" when, in reality, he was choosing not to enforce congressional statutes to which he objected on policy grounds. Substantially, there was no case-by-case review; just occasional lip service to the notion of individualized treatment when he'd announce non-enforcement directives and "waivers" of this or that statute. As noted above, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion cannot be avoided. If that is all the executive branch is doing, there is no need to make a big announcement about it. The point of decreeing DACA was not to exercise prosecutorial discretion; it was to confer de facto amnesty on a class of DREAMers, as the president - not Congress - defined them.

DACA is a good example of how ludicrously far Obama took the "prosecutorial discretion" sham. Quite apart from the categorical amnesty, the most constitutionally offensive thing about DACA is its awarding of positive legal benefits to aliens - in particular, work permits. Besides being a blatant usurpation of congressional authority, the grant of a benefit has nothing to do with prosecutorial discretion. The doctrine rationalizes non-enforcement of the laws in individual cases; it does not manufacture legal entitlements for a class of beneficiaries - or at least it didn't until Obama came along.

Now, prompted by Pelosi, Trump has reaffirmed Obama's prosecutorial-discretion sleight of hand. In fact, Trump's action is arguably worse - yet another instance of the folly of announcing policy via Twitter and its 140-character limits (including exclamation points!). The 2012 Department of Homeland Security guidance through which the Obama administration implemented DACA at least pretended that "requests for relief pursuant to this memorandum are to be decided on a case by case basis." Trump's tweet doesn't even go through the motions. He sweepingly declares that his reprieve applies to "all" DACA beneficiaries, promising that they "have nothing to worry about - No action!"

Let's set aside the media-generated image of a toddler, dragged here by desperate parents through no fault of his own, who goes on to become valedictorian and land a great job at Google. Let's make our hypothetical a 26-year-old illegal alien who came to the United States when he was 15, sneaking in with a small group of young males. This guy is a member of a violent street gang. He has managed to avoid any felony convictions - a couple of arrests expunged through diversion programs, so his rap sheet shows just one trifling disorderly-conduct conviction (it was actually a forcible assault, but a prosecutor let him plead it down to a minor misdemeanor). At the moment, he is a suspect in another nasty assault . . . but the gang has threatened the witness, who is now refusing to testify. The police and prosecutor would love to charge him, but they know it would be futile. Meanwhile, though he long ago dropped out of high school, he's rigged a slot in a government-funded G.E.D. program - on paper, he's in school.

Under Obama's guidelines, our gang-banger qualifies as a DREAMer. And under the terms of Trump's commitment, tweeted at Pelosi's behest, he has "nothing to worry about" because there will be "No action!"

If it's laudatory media he's after, Trump is going to love working with the Democrats. His "Build That Wall!" base may not like it so much.

- Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review .

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DACA: Trump Does the Full Obama on Prosecutorial Discretion

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The Donald's renewed romance with old pals (and donees) "Chuck and Nancy" is already paying more dividends . . . for Democrats. If the president's tweet on Thursday morning is to be believed (not always a sure thing), he has fully adopted the unconstitutional distortion of prosecutorial discretion employed by President Obama to avoid executing the laws faithfully.

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Tweet quoted by Andrew C. McCarthy for National Review article

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Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared at Acculturated, and it is reprinted here with permission.

For more than 16 years, senators and congressmen have been trying to pass bills giving legal status to people who illegally immigrated to the United States as children. The latest iteration had a name with the initials D.R.E.A.M., so the beneficiaries of the proposed law became known as "DREAMers." When the DREAM Act died in the Senate in 2010, President Obama circumvented Congress and unilaterally granted nearly 800,000 DREAMers the right to live and work in America. The Obama aAdministration called this move DACA or "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals."

The Trump administration recently announced that it would phase out DACA. The White House emphasized that it would not target DREAMers for deportation and that it would allow many DREAMers to renew their legal status for another two-year term. Since the president's announcement, he has even suggested that he will extend DREAMers' temporary legal status again and again until Congress grants them permanent relief.

Despite the complexity of the facts, celebrities rushed to Twitter to accuse the president of evil, prejudice, and cowardice. Mia Farrow and Morgan Fairchild retweeted a Washington Post article titled "Ending DACA would be Trump's most evil act." Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda tweeted, "The bad man [Trump] continues to do bad." Fifth Harmony singer Lauren Jauregui tweeted a little more vitriol, telling the president: "You disgust me. You and your squad of Republican elite/cowards are truly sick humans." Movie executive Franklin Leonard made a not-so-subtle racism accusation: "Jim Crow was the rule of law too." Bernie Sanders calls the administration's move "one of the ugliest and cruelest decisions ever made by a president in modern history." Michael Moore claims that protesting the end of DACA is necessary "if we are ever to be a decent country."

DREAMers are a sympathetic group, and their advocates are clearly motivated by compassion. But are critics of the DREAM Act and DACA motivated by cruelty?

According to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, compassion is only one of several distinct foundations of morality. Those who support ending DACA are not fighting to spread evil in the world. They are, instead, drawing their conclusions from different moral foundations. Haidt, a political liberal, explains in his book, The Righteous Mind, that people on the left tend to emphasize liberty and caring in their moral reasoning. Political conservatives, on the other hand, make their moral judgments based on a wider range of moral criteria. Liberty and caring are important factors for conservatives too, but so are fairness, loyalty and respect for authority.

If you read what DACA critics are writing, you'll find arguments based on all these moral foundations. For example, on fairness: It's not fair that the children of illegal immigrants should get more privileges than the children of people who followed the rules. Loyalty: As Americans, we need to watch out for Americans first, and every university spot or job taken by a DREAMer is a position an American cannot have. Respect for authority: Everybody - including the president - should obey the law, and the law currently does not allow DREAMers to live or work in the United States. While these arguments are not unassailable, they are hardly rooted in cruelty and racism.

Lefty celebrities and Democratic politicians would convince more people of the worthiness of their cause if they acknowledged the moral validity of some of the arguments against DACA and made the case that, in this specific instance, compassion should prevail over other moral considerations. Until tweeting celebs realize they don't have the morality market cornered, the breach between Hollywood and Middle America will only widen.

READ MORE:
DACA Indicates Trend toward Executive Overreach
DACA is Unfair to Native-Born Americans
To End DACA, Follow the Constitution

- RT Vaden blogs at CulturalConservative.net.

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Stop Smearing DACA Critics as Evil and Racist

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Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared at Acculturated , and it is reprinted here with permission. For more than 16 years, senators and congressmen have been trying to pass bills giving legal status to people who illegally immigrated to the United States as children.

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It's hard to believe all this could happen in just one week, but here we are with the weekly roundup.
Widespread disruption from Harvey and Irma
Six of the nation's 10 largest school districts - Puerto Rico, Miami-Dade, Broward County, Houston ISD, Hillsborough County and Orange County - were shuttered this week because of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Houston schools are scheduled to reopen on Monday, with three free meals a day for students. Florida school buildings and campuses are being readied as shelters and staging grounds for supplies as Hurricane Irma heads north.
Educators and students react to the cancellation of DACA
The Trump administration announced Tuesday the end of the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. President Trump gave Congress a six-month deadline to find a solution.

The decision leaves around 800,000 young people who arrived in this country as children in limbo. Many are students.

"Thousands of educators" and students across the country are "struggling with what happens next," NPR Ed's Claudio Sanchez reported. The University of California system has filed suit against Trump's administration for "wrongly and unconstitutionally violating the rights of the University and its [DACA] students."

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told CBS News that "my heart is with" DACA recipients, but "we are a nation of laws" and said Congress should address the issue. Her statements contrasted with those in a letter signed by five former education secretaries, who wrote, "We must not, we cannot, let these children down."

Leaders of colleges such as the City University of New York, the University of California and the Miami Dade College have pledged material and legal support for their DACA students.
DeVos will rewrite Obama-era guidance on campus sex misconduct
In an emotional speech at George Mason University on Thursday, DeVos decried what she said was a "failed system" for investigating sexual misconduct complaints at K-12 schools and colleges and universities. She announced a public notice and comment process to rewrite guidance issued by the Obama administration that resulted in stepped-up enforcement of Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.

DeVos' emphasis on the plight of those accused of sexual misconduct - she used the word "accused" 13 times in her speech - drew sharp criticism from survivors' and feminist groups.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement, "Secretary DeVos just made an open invitation to colleges to once again sweep this national epidemic under the rug."

" Today, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made campuses safer for rapists by putting the concerns of survivors on par with those accused," said a representative statement from SurvJustice, a nonprofit group for survivors of sexual violence.

But the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a free speech and civil liberties group, said in a statement: "Basic procedural safeguards like the presumption of innocence are critically lacking at many top universities, particularly during sexual misconduct proceedings."
Senate committee nixes Trump's education cuts, choice programs
Those big cuts to education spending in the president's budget proposal? Ain't happening, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which voted this week. The president's proposed cut of 13.5 percent to the education budget became a modest increase. Teacher training and after-school programs were spared. And the president's proposals to increase charters and vouchers were deep-sixed as well. Some funds are coming out of the Pell Grant surplus for needy college students, though. Of course, the budget is still a long way from becoming law.

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Harvey, Irma, DACA And Campus Sexual Assault

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It's hard to believe all this could happen in just one week, but here we are with the weekly roundup. Widespread disruption from Harvey and Irma Six of the nation's 10 largest school districts - Puerto Rico, Miami-Dade, Broward County, Houston ISD, Hillsborough County and Orange County - were shuttered this week because of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.