Lux Lucet

With fists raised in the Hart Senate Office Building, students demonstrate for a clean DREAM Act, November 11, 2017, Washington DC

“It’s outrageous that the White House would undercut months of bipartisan efforts by again trying toput its entire wish list of hardline anti-immigrant bills – plus an additional $18 billion in wall funding – on the backs of these young people [DACA beneficiaries].” So said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) in remarks made earlier this month.

But harsh words for President Trump’s immigration stance were not limited to Democrats. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was as outraged as Sen. Durbin. Said Graham, “The Stephen Miller approach to immigration [Stephen Miller is a top advisor to Donald Trump and is opposed to DACA] has no viability. Tuesday, the president was in a good place. He was the president of all of us. He spoke compassionately about immigration, tough on security, wanted bipartisanship. Two days later, there was a major change. I think the change comes about from people like Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller is well known in the Senate for having views that are [Gasp!] outside the mainstream.”

To put it another way, Stephen Miller has this strange idea that a proper American immigration policy should serve the interests of the American people, and, further, that their interests should not be placed in a subservient position to those of foreigners or special groups within the United States.

By standing up for the interests of Americans against the forces, Democratic and Republican, who want to ram a DACA amnesty through Congress, Stephen Miller is staying true to one of the key planks of Donald Trump’s campaign platform. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the Trump promised on his campaign’s website to push for immigration reform that “will make America great again.”

Central to such immigration reform was Trump’s statement that, “A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.” This is surprisingly good language, far better than the usual altruistic claptrap that one usually hears when the subject of immigration comes up.

DACA, What Is It?

Before detailing why, in my view, Congress and the President ought to just say no to DACA, it seems good to pause first and explain of what DACA is.

DACA is an acronym standing for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The DACA program was instituted by a memorandum issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on June 15, 2012 and announced to the public that same say in a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House by then President Barak Obama.

DACA was, in effect, a small-scale version of the DREAM Act, legislation that had failed on several previous occasions to make it out of Congress.

As with the DREAM Act, the intent of DACA was to stop deportation proceedings on undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children. Because these individuals were not born in the United States, they did not acquire citizenship by birthright. Further, they are not naturalized US citizens. As a result, so it was argued, there was a large group of foreigners who had lived most of their lives in the US and were, as Obama put it at the time he announced the DACA program in 2012, “Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.”

The DREAM Act also offered in-state tuition to undocumented students who attended high school for at least three years and applied to become US citizens. Further, it provided a path to citizenship for those serving in the military.

In September 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced, “The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama Administration is being rescinded. ” As Time reports, “In a letter to Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Dukes on Monday, Sessions concluded that the program was an ‘unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.” This move was in fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promise to end DACA.

Only Trump really didn’t end DACA. He threw the matter back to Congress, tweeting, “Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can’t, I will revisit this issue!”

This brings us to the present Congressional Mexican standoff in which the Democrats, and some Republicans, won’t approve the spending bill needed to fund the federal government because it doesn’t contain a legislative provision to make DACA permanent. Likewise, many Republicans refuse to support a spending bill with the DACA language.

DACA, Just Say No

Back in the day, I’m talking about the 80’s here, Nancy Reagan had an anti-drug program called “Just Say No.” Well, to take a page from the former First Lady’s playbook, this writer believes that Congress should do likewise when it comes to any proposed DACA legislation and just say no to it. Below are my reasons for saying this.

First, DACA is amnesty. Amnesty is defined as, “the act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals” (Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary). Perhaps because of the distaste the American people have for the idea of amnesty, no one refers to DACA this way. But as Matt Welch noted in the Washington Post, “Yes, DACA is ‘amnesty.’ Just call it that, then do it.”

So why is it that amnesty is a dirty word when it comes to immigration? Apart from the fact that it rewards those who break American immigration law, effectively calling evil “good,” the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) effectively turned the state of California blue (Democratic) forever.

Back in the day, California was a reliably Republican state. In 1980, former California governor Ronald Reagan won the presidency, while the Orange County Republicans were nationally famous for their staunch conservatism.

But IRCA helped to change all that by legalizing approximately 3 million formerly illegal immigrants. As this population was heavily Mexican, a population that historically has favored socialism making them natural Democrats, it is no surprise that the last time California voted Republican in a presidential election was 1988, just after the 1986 IRCA amnesty.

The IRCA amnesty was a mistake, as many conservatives now acknowledge. It did nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigration. This should come as no surprise as the not so subtle message it broadcast to the world was, “Come on in, hunker down, and sooner or later you’ll be rewarded with US citizenship.” In other words, the IRCA amnesty rewarded poor behavior.

In like fashion, a DACA amnesty will have the same effects. Not only will not solve the problem of children being brought to the US contrary to US immigration law, it will actually exacerbate the problem as it will advertise to the world that immigration crime does, in fact, pay.

Second, trading amnesty for supposedly ending chain migration and funding construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border is a bad deal. Why? Amnesty is forever, legislative changes can be undone as soon as the next election cycle.

What do I mean by amnesty being forever? Simply that once amnesty has been enacted, it can’t be undone. Pass DACA and just see what happens if anyone tries to reverse it. That’s not going to happen. Or tell me, do you think there would be any chance of reversing citizenship granted to DACA beneficiaries once the deed is done? Of course not. Such an act would not even be moral at that point.

By way of example, just think of what happened when Joshua and the Israelites granted amnesty, so to speak, to the Gibeonites. The account is given in Joshua chapter 9. The Gibeonites, as you may recall, tricked the Israelites into signing a treaty with them. When the Israelites found they’d been played, the rulers said to the congregation, “We have sworn to them by the LORD God of Israel; now therefore, we may not touch them.”

The same does not hold for legislation. The Constitution allows legislation to be signed into law, and then later reversed. Trump has talked about trading chain migration and funding for the construction of the wall in exchange for DACA.

This is a bad deal. The Democrats will get their amnesty up front and it will be permanent, but who knows whether chain migration will ever actually be ended or so much as one foot of the border wall will be constructed. Do you think the Democrats, fresh from their DACA victory, would simply lie down and allow these provisions to proceed, or would they fight tooth and nail to prevent the end of chain migration and the construction of the wall, even though both provisions were part of the DACA deal? To ask the question is to answer it.

Just say no to DACA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/ba34fb92-c58d-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168

Third, many DACA beneficiaries are absolutely insufferable in their arrogance. For example, during a November 2017 demonstration, the Washington Post reports that pro-DACA students, “ditched school and marched to Capitol Hill en masse, then filled four floors of balconies in the vast atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. Silent at first, fists raised in the air, they soon erupted into bellowing chants that echoed through the massive marble-clad room. ‘Dream Act. Dream Act. Sí se puede. Sí se puede.’ ”  Click on the video above for a taste of what the rally was like.

The Post further reports that as the students were leaving the Hart building they chanted “Undocumented. Unafraid.”

When thinking about this event, I find myself coming back to that old saying about how you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. If these students think that demonstrations of this sort are going to win the hearts and minds of the American people, they are sorely mistaken. In fact, I can hardly think of any single act that could arouse my anger more than a bunch of foreigners taking over a US Senate building and with fists raised loudly and demanding their right to the benefits of American citizenship. Do these people not have public relations handlers? Apparently not.

Another group of pro-DACA savants, this time in LA, decided it would be great publicity for their cause if they to block a busy intersection. As the Los Angeles Daily News reports, “Chanting slogans and standing atop bunk-bed frames, protesters temporarily blocked traffic near the federal building in Westwood Thursday as part of a series of demonstrations coinciding with the deadline for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients to renew their work permits.” LAPD captain Brian Wendling stated “It was very dangerous” and that the demonstrators “had chains going across the street…and they were blocking all the traffic.”

Alrighty then. So, fellow Americans, what say you? Do you think it’s better to have more people in your country who given to throwing temper tantrums every time they don’t get their way in the political process, or do want fewer of them?

The choice is clear, just say no to DACA.

Fourth, DACA is a means for the Democrats to import a constituency, people who will cast the ballots Americans won’t cast.

You see, the Democrats haven’t had a new popular idea since, I don’t know, LBJ and the Great Society. And that unconstitutional, socialistic disaster is certainly nothing to brag about.

Oh, I know, I left out the (un)Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Mind you, this is the legislative train wreck the American people were conned into supporting, the program that even Democratic icon Bill Clinton called, “the craziest thing in the world.”

You see, Americans just don’t buy into socialism the way people in many other parts of the world do. For all of our problems, the whole class envy thing is still a hard sell around these parts, and this makes life difficult for socialist busybodies like Bernie Sanders. As a result, the Dems have decided that dissolving the people and electing a new one (hat tip to German playwright Bertolt Brecht for that catchy turn of phrase) is the way to go.

And don’t just take my word for it either. Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director and Director of Communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, penned a memo earlier this month for Center for American Progress, a progressive, that is to say, socialist think tank in which she stated, “The fight to protect Dreamers [DACA beneficiaries] is not only a moral imperative, it is also a critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success” (emphasis mine).

To put it another way, the Democrats are looking to import a constituency, because Americans aren’t buying their shtick.

So ask yourself, do you want to live in a county with more blue states or fewer blue states?

If you answered fewer, just say no to DACA.

Fifth, over three quarters of the DACA beneficiaries are from predominately Roman Catholic Mexico, and as such the Roman Church State, the Woman Who Rides the Beast of Revelation, seeks to import as many Mexican, Central, and South American migrants as possible into the US, in order to Romanize America Through Illegal Immigration.

In his article on the subject of Rome’s attempt to subvert the United States by flooding the country with illegal immigrants loyal to the Pope, Pastor Ralph Ovadal quoted one Romanist priest as saying, “America is a dying nation. I tell the Mexicans when I am down in Mexico to keep on having children, and then to take back what we took from them: California, Texas, Arizona, and then to take the rest of the country as well” (Brenda Walker, “America’s Vaticrats Wish You Happy National Migration Week!” quoted in Ovadal, “Romanizing America through Illegal Immigration“).

Last September, Stephen Bannon, former Chief Political Strategist for Donald Trump, commented on the reasons behind the Vatican’s persistent support for high levels of immigration into the US. In a “60 Minutes” interview with Charlie Rose, Bannon, himself a Roman Catholic, said, Unable to really come to grips with the problems in the Church, they [American leaders of the Roman Church-State] need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches…It’s obvious on the face of it…They have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration” (Jenna Johnson, “Bannon: Catholic Church needs ‘illegal aliens to fill the churches’ ” the Washington Post, September 7, 2017).

In light of the economically, and I would add, politically self-interested attempts by the Roman Church-State and her Antichrist popes to subvert the United States through illegal immigration, it should come as no surprise that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops blasted the Trump administration’s decision to rescind DACA. Mounting their high horse, the bishops thundered,

The cancellation of the DACA program is reprehensible. It causes unnecessary fear for DACA youth and their families. These youth entered the U.S. as minors and often know America as their only home. The Catholic Church has long watched with pride and admiration as DACA youth live out their daily lives with hope and a determination to flourish and contribute to society: continuing to work and provide for their families, continuing to serve in the military, and continuing to receive an education. Now, after months of anxiety and fear about their futures, these brave young people face deportation. This decision is unacceptable and does not reflect who we are as Americans. (“USCCB President, Vice President and Committee Chairmen Denounce Administration’s Decision to End DACA and Strongly Urge Congres to Find Legislative Solution,” September 5, 2017).

To this I’m tempted to reply, “What do you mean ‘we’, Paleface?” Seriously. It’s not as if I’d expect a brood of vipers such as the USCCB to support ending DACA, but I’d appreciate it if they’d stop arrogantly pretending to be the moral conscience of all Americans.

Worth noting, too, is that there is nothing in the bishops’ statement about having compassion on hard pressed American taxpayers who they imply without actually saying it are expected to bear the costs associated with the DACA amnesty and all the subsequent the amnesties that, if DACA is passed, will follow as surely as night follows day.

But when you’re a spiritual slave of the Woman Who Rides The Beast, breaking a nation to further your globalist ambitions is all in a day’s work.

Say no to Rome’s New World Order. Just say no to DACA.

All which brings me to the sixth reason I have for rejecting the DACA amnesty. Amnesties are like cock roaches, there’s never just one.

Just as the enormous 1986 IRCA amnesty didn’t solve the problem of illegal immigration, but did succeed in turning California permanently blue and socialist and helped lay the ground work for the even bigger illegal immigration problem we face now, thirty years later, so too will DACA set the stage for future amnesties. This is true for at least two reasons.

One, DACA covers only a small portion of the total number of adults illegally brought into the US as children. As the title of a recent USA Today article explains, “There are 3.6M ‘DREAMers’ – a number far greater than commonly known.”

The usual figure quoted for DACA eligible individuals is 800,000. So where does the 3.6M number come in? Simply this, the DACA program is a more narrowly focused version of the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation that failed to make it out of Congress. After his failure to get the DREAM Act passed, Barak Obama decided to go the Executive Order route. The executive order did not have provisions covering all individuals brought to the US as children. For example, the order stated that DACA beneficiaries could be no more than thirty years old. So even if someone were illegally brought to the US as a child, if that person were over thirty at the time DACA was instituted, he would be ineligible for the program. The USA Today article discusses a man who faces this very situation. He was illegally brought to the US at the age of ten but was too old to apply for DACA. He ended up being deported back to Mexico.

So here we are, with not merely 800,000 DACA beneficiaries, but a total of 3.6M DREAMers of all sorts. Ask yourself this question, If DACA is enacted, what do you think the odds are that the remaining 2.8M non-DACA eligible DREAMers also will be given amnesty?

Two, amnesties send out the unspoken signal that, if one can somehow get to the US and evade deportation long enough, eventually he will be awarded with citizenship. This is a powerful incentive to violate American immigration law, and all but guarantees more illegal border crossings in the future, which in turn will require a further amnesty, which in turn will produce more illegal immigration, which will require another amnesty, which in turn… In other words, it produces a never ending vicious cycle of law breaking and amnesties.

Amnesty solves nothing. It rewards bad behavior, and it punishes America’s citizens, legal permanent residents, and those who seek to cone to the country legally.

Amnesty is a never ending hamster wheel of immigration disasters. Just say no to DACA.

[To be continued]