The editors of the Washington Post make another plea to allow illegal immigrants brought here as children, the “DREAMers”, to remain:
QUICK, NAME a major public policy issue on which overwhelming numbers of Americans are united. Stumped? (Granted, it’s a short list.) Here’s one answer: allowing “dreamers†— young undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children — to remain in the United States if they pass background checks, go to school and fulfill other basic requirements. In a dozen polls this fall, including one released Tuesday, respondents who favor permitting dreamers to stay in the United States generally outnumber those who would deport them by at least 3-to-1, and often by 4-to-1 or 5-to-1.
The support for dreamers is bipartisan, and it shows up clearly and almost identically in surveys conducted by Fox News and CNN, among other media outlets, including The Post. Despite that, an array of bills that would protect dreamers from deportation, either by granting them a form of legal status or by putting them on short- or long-term pathways to citizenship, remain stalled in Congress.
The Congress should vote on a measure to give the DREAMers legal status and President Trump should sign it into law. As I’ve said before, there are good arguments in favor of such a course of action.
However, by and large those arguments do not apply to the parents of DREAMers and the same consideration should not be extended to them. Furthermore, whatever qualifications are required by the legislation should be enforced. That’s what the rule of law requires.
Well how does one craft legislation to not extend consideration to whoever brought the dreamers.
Once the dreamers have a green card or citizenship, they can sponsor whoever brought them here.
If the rationale is no mens rea, i.e. no intent to commit any crime, then the logic doesn’t extend to their parents. If the rationale is they have no meaningful ties to their parents’ country, that doesn’t pertain to the parents, either.
If the rationale is that you’re sorry for them, then you have open borders. No borders = no country.
As to the family reunification aspect of the issue, the parents of these young people wouldn’t be eligible for sponsorship under present law.