It has been reported that Speaker Paul Ryan has formed a “task force” to develop legislation to save the unconstitutional Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). Based on the voting records of those he has selected for this task-force, it appears that the Speaker has wrongly decided that Republicans’ top priority should be to incentivize a new wave of illegal immigration across our southern border. It appears that House leadership now intends to revive DACA as a means of “Delivering Amnesty to Central Americans.”
A quick analysis of the members Speaker Ryan has selected reveals that the fix may be in for an open-borders, pro-Amnesty recommendation. Of the 10 members appointed to his “DACA task force,” at least six of them (a task force majority) are on record favoring a path to legal residency or a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. Three of those selected were members of the “Group of 8,” a House effort to pass an Amnesty bill in 2013 that mirrored the Senate’s controversial “Gang of 8” efforts. (Interestingly, there were only 4 GOP members of the “Group of 8” and Speaker Ryan managed to appoint 3 of them to his hand-selected group.) One of the selectees is even an outspoken opponent of President Trump’s proposed and necessary border wall.
To make matters worse, not one of these task force members will call DACA what it is: Amnesty. Not one will tell the task force that the Rule of Law is more precious than our sympathy for a small group of “Dreamers.” Not one will admit that MS-13 gang members will be included in this amnesty. Not one will ask the questions, “Why are we leading with Amnesty again? Why aren’t we enforcing the law, keeping our promises and restoring respect for the Rule of Law?”
By stacking his task force with pro-Amnesty members, Speaker Ryan is betraying the faith that America’s voters placed in President Trump and in GOP congressional majorities last November. Americans believed “Making America Great Again” included the GOP working with the President to:
“Build The Wall” along our Southern border to stem the flow of illegal aliens coming predominantly from Mexico, Central, and South America. Americans voted in favor of building a wall and increasing removals and deportations. Saving DACA does neither, it simply rewards those who were able to take illicit advantage of the fact that our southern border is so porous, we don’t know who is coming and going through it.
Restore our ability to enforce our existing immigration laws. Saving DACA will place a strain on our enforcement efforts. When the world is sent a signal that our nation will foolishly compromise on its immigration laws, the world will respond by swamping our nation’s borders and draining that nation’s limited enforcement resources in the expectation that, down the road, our nation will compromise again.
End DACA on Day One. Perhaps most importantly for this debate, President Trump filled massive rallies with tens of thousands of supporters throughout the country who cheered his many specific promises to end DACA, an action which works to restore respect for the Rule of Law. Like it or not, DACA recipients are in the country illegally, and they ought to have the law equally applied to them instead of modified to grant them a special exemption from its application.
Make no mistake, Americans voted for a high-energy President to enforce our borders against those who would make breaking the law their very first act. Similarly, Americans voted for a Republican Congress in the belief it would work with President Trump to prioritize the economic interests of our citizens over those of illegal aliens.
What is an American citizen to make of the fact that current GOP leadership can’t or won’t deliver on a promise it has repeatedly made to repeal ObamaCare but instead works to pass a DACA bill they won the Presidency and Congressional majorities by opposing? In both cases, someone’s interests are being placed first, and it isn’t the interests of America’s citizens.
Every American should take note of those candidates who stand with the economic interests of America’s citizens, and who stand with the Rule of Law, by rejecting Amnesty in all its forms. It is wrong when Democrats seek to demean the intrinsic value of American citizenship by importing the Third World to replace the millions of voters their redistributionist policies and racial grievance politics have driven away. It is also wrong when Republican leadership conveniently chooses to waive the application of the law to guarantee a supply of unskilled and low-cost workers for their corporate benefactors.
President Trump was correct to rescind DACA, and Congress should work to ensure it remains another failed part of former President Obama’s unsuccessful effort to build a legacy on unconstitutional actions.
Congressman Steve King represents Iowa’s 4th District. He is a member of the House Judiciary, House Agriculture, and House Small Business committees.
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