Lux Lucet

Dreamers interrupt Nancy Pelosi’s press conference, September 19, 2017.

It was my intention to continue a post I began last week outlining various reasons why Americans ought to reject DACA. But due to developments since my last post, I decided to take this week’s article in a similar, but slightly different, direction.

As of last week’s posting, the US federal government was still in shut down mode due to demands by certain members of Congress, who, oddly enough. insisted that funding the government should be made contingent on allowing foreign citizens to remain in the country in violation of US immigration law. The shut down ended when these same certain Congressmen realized that they were getting nowhere and folded.

But their decision to fold did not mark the end of the debate over DACA or over the DREAM Act. It just kicked the can down the road a little bit.

You see, last September President Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program…sort of. According to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Trump administration would stop considering new applications for legal status dated after 9/5/17 and would allow any DACA recipients with a permit set to expire before March 5, 2018 the opportunity to apply for a two-year renewal if they apply before October 5, 2017. This deadline was recently extended by court order to allow individuals currently in the DACA program to apply for renewal up until March 5, 2018.

At the same time, Trump gave Congress a six-month window to come up with an acceptable version of DACA which he promised to sign.

As things stands now, DACA is in a sort of un-dead status. The program is not accepting new applicants, but those already in the program can continue to apply for renewal of their status with no end date for renewal applications in sight.

That said, both the White House and Congress seem eager to find some permanent, legislative solution to DACA that would allow the program’s beneficiaries usually referred to in the press as DREAMers, to remain in the country on a permanent basis.

It was with an eye to such a legislative solution that last week the White House issued a one-page document titled White House Framework on Immigration Reform & Border Security as an initial step in the DACA negotiations with Congress. The framework has four major sections which are,

• Border Security, which, among other things, provides for a $25 billion trust fund to build a wall,
  
• DACA Legalization, which increases the number of persons covered by DACA from the estimated 800,000 just last week to 1.8 million individuals,
  
• Protect the Nuclear Family, which proposes to limit chain migration – chain migration refers to the option naturalized citizens and legal residents have of brining their extended family from their home country to the US – to spouses and minor children only,
  
• Eliminate Lottery and Repurpose Visas, a process which proposes eliminate of the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. a program which, “makes up to 50,000 immigrant visas available annually, drawn from random selection among all entries to individuals who are from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States,” and make these visas available for processing the family-based and high-skilled employment backlogs. For what it’s worth, the Diversity Lottery visa program is how Sayfullo Saipov, the man who used a rented pickup truck to run down and kill six people on a bike path in New York last October. Interestingly enough, Saipov once lived in an area of Cincinnati not very far from my home.
  

In the view of this author, the Framework is a disaster. For one it is a far cry from the commitment Trump made in August 2016 when he promised to end DACA. But more than that, the Framework more than doubles the number of individuals covered under DACA. During the debate over the past few weeks, we’ve been told that the DACA program covers about 800,000 individuals, the new Framework covers 1.8 million and goes a step further than DACA by providing a pathway to citizenship.

Third, the proposal is that it makes the tactical mistake of trading DACA amnesty now while providing only promises of improved border security in the future, promises that more than likely never will be kept.

Finally, the Framework says nothing about eliminating the birthright citizenship loophole, a loophole which creates over 300,000 new American citizens each year out of children born to foreign citizens in the US. This is the case regardless of whether the parents even are legally in the country.

Elimination of birthright citizenship was part of Trump’s immigration reform platform during the 2016 campaign. Trump’s campaign website read, “This [birthright citizenship] remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said “no sane country” would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.”

Maybe Trump should call up Harry Reid to discuss this point, because Reid was right on target. This is an insane policy. It makes a mockery of US citizenship, contradicts what the Bible teaches about how citizenship is properly acquired, and the American people support its elimination by a wide margin. There is no good excuse for the White House to omit ending this outrage, what Trump called “the single biggest magnet for illegal immigration,” from the Framework.

Let The Shrieking Begin

Now Trump administration officials may have been under the impression that by preemptively giving away, if not the whole store, a good portion of it, in their immigration reform Framework, they would earn some goodwill brownie points from the SJW DACA folks. If so, it appears they were more than a little naive.

Nancy Peolsi’s office was among the first to comment – if indeed “comment” is the right word to describe her shrill, shrieking statement – on the White House Framework. Wailed Pelosi,

The Administration’s anti-immigrant framework is an act of staggering cowardice which attempts to hold the DREAMers hostage to a hateful anti-immigrant scheme.

The 50 percent cut to legal immigration in the framework and the recent announcements to end Temporary Protected Status for Central Americans and Haitians are both part of the same cruel agenda. They are part of the Trump Administration’s unmistakable campaign to make America white again.

“It is often said that America is great because America is good.  We are a great country that has been blessed and reinvigorated with the faith and family values of generations of immigrants.  That is why so many faith leaders, even those who support the President, have recognized that immigration strengthens our families, our churches and our communities.

The DREAMers will not be ransomed for a hateful agenda that betrays our sacred American values.

So, Trump’s a coward, and a hostage taker. He’s a cruel white nationalist and a betrayer of sacred values. Doubtless, Pelosi’s rhetoric has set a tone of goodwill and statesmanship that will make for productive negotiations between the White House and Congress.

Picking up where he boss left off, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-NM, reacted to the Framework thus, “The White House is using Dreamers to mask their underlying xenophobic, isolationist, and un-American policies, which will harm millions living in the United States and millions of others who want to legally immigrate and contribute to our country.” While making her concerns for illegal immigrants and foreigners quite clear, it was not entirely obvious to this writer what she thought about the interests of actual American who are expected to pay for her desired massive Dreamer giveaway.

Trespassers from George Soros funded United We Dream takeover the office of  Sen. Thom Tillis, January 24, 2018.

 Greisa Martinez Rosas, Advocacy Directory for the George Soros supported United We Dream organization, calmly reflected on the White House proposal. She released a statement saying,

Let’s call this proposal for what it is: a white supremacist ransom note. Trump and Stephen Miller killed DACA and created the crisis that immigrant youth are facing. They have taken immigrant youth hostage, pitting us against our own parents, Black immigrants and our communities in exchange for our dignity.

To Miller and Trump’s white supremacist proposal, immigrant youth say: No.

With each passing day, immigrant youth are losing their livelihoods and are at risk of deportation. People like Eric, Yuridia, and Damaris could soon face the same fate as Luis, who was kicked in the head by deportation agents and confined in a detention camp.

But our fear, our pain, and our lives must not be used to shackle our parents and ban those seeking refuge; we must not be used to tear apart the moral fabric of this country. For months, we have organized and mobilized the country to demand a common sense solution that delivers protection without harming others: the Dream Act.

So let us be clear: any politician who backs up this ransom note is enabling Trump and Miller’s white supremacist agenda.

Members of Congress of conscience must make the moral choice to reject this white supremacist proposal and pass legislation that protects us without harming others. Dream Act now.

Earlier in January, Rosas declared, “I am not a bargaining chip for Stephen Miller’s vendetta against brown and black people. Offering up my safety in exchange for the suffering and deportation of our families is sick and we won’t stand for it.”

All this ranting has me asking myself this question, Do I want more people like Greisa Martinez Rosas in my country, or fewer? For some odd reason, I find I don’t have to think very long to come up with an answer.

Comparatively speaking, Diana Pliego, policy associate at the National Immigration Law Center, another organization on the payroll of Soros’ Open Society Foundation, was calm, cool and collected. She said,

This White House proposal demonstrates once again that the Trump administration is not serious about finding a solution for immigrant youth. President Trump created this crisis last September when he rescinded the DACA program and told Congress to fix it. Instead of working to find a solution, he is sabotaging the process by turning a bipartisan compromise on its head and morphing it into a white nationalist wish list.

This is just another ploy to hold protections for immigrant youth hostage to enact his white supremacist agenda. The solution for immigrant youth should be focused narrowly on resolving the crisis Trump created. It should not be a vehicle to harm immigrant families and communities.

Wearing a Church World Service tee shirt, a young woman expresses the globalist line on immigration policy.  I’ve edited the photo due to the original being inappropriate for this blog.  Notice that standing to her left is a demonstrator wearing a shirt with United We Dream’s logo.

To round things out, let’s take a look at what Church World Service had to say about the Trump Framework. Did the fine folks at CWS do any better than the groups I’ve already cited? Let’s see.

Washington, D.C. – CWS strongly condemns the White House’s supposed immigration “reform” memo leaked earlier this evening. Stephen Miller’s plan reverses President Trump’s earlier commitment to sign a legislative solution for Dreamers. It would hold hostage a pathway to citizenship for some Dreamers by stopping U.S. citizens from sponsoring their parents, siblings, and even children; supercharging a deportation force that is already wildly out of control; and spending $25 billion on a wasteful border wall..

“This White House proposal is immoral, and in no way a serious attempt to pass a legislative solution for Dreamers. With this memo, President Trump has demonstrated that he cannot lead but will allow Stephen Miller and other white supremacists to dictate his policies. The administration is continuing to wage its war on immigrants, this time by exploiting dreamers and redefining family. This is part and parcel of a xenophobic and white supremacist agenda. Dreamers are Americans—and it’s time for Congress to recognize that fact. 87% of the American public already does,” said Rev. John L. McCullough, President and CEO of Church World Service.

“After President Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, he pledged to sign a bipartisan solution for Dreamers. Now, he is going back on that promise and demanding the restrictionist portion of comprehensive immigration reform in exchange for a Dreamer solution for which he has already pledged support. This exploitation of Dreamer’s predicament – a plight which President Trump has caused – calls to mind Matthew 18:6, in which Jesus proclaims If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. There is already broad bipartisan consensus on a solution for Dreamers – Congress must not bow to Stephen Miller’s white supremacist agenda that will dismantle the very values upon which this nation was founded.”

CWS urges the public to call their Members of Congress and demand that Congress reject this White House proposal and instead pass a clean DREAM Act now.

Nope. Not only did CWS not do any better than the other organizations, but they managed to compound their error by misapplying Scripture to buttress their argument for their unbiblical, unchristian socialist immigration policy.

By the way, I have an article from Breitbart with a picture of a young woman at a pro-immigration rally. She’s wearing a clearly visible CWS tee shirt while holding up a sign that reads, “No Borders No Nations [blank] Your Deportations.” And this is the group that wants to quote the Bible at you and act as if they have the moral high ground. Spare me.

Do you notice a pattern here? Apparently the memo went out to all the lefty SJW types that the game plan to defeat Trump, Stephen Miller and their supporters on immigration is to smear as “white nationalist” anyone who makes any immigration reform proposal other than agreeing to import the entire population of the world to the US, showering them with loot from the welfare state, and sticking American citizens with the bill to pay for it all. This is Social Justice in action.

Screen shot showing Open Society Foundations’ donations to the National Immigration Law Center and United We Dream from 2010.  Here’s the link https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/national-immigration-law-center-united-we-dream-network.

It’s Not Just About Immigration

United We Dream, one of the Soros funded organizations mentioned above, does not limit itself strictly to immigration issues, but has its fingers in other related pies as well.

To give you a little more of a flavor of the sort of radical leftist agenda pursued by this group, check out their About page. Billing themselves as “the largest immigrant youth-led community in the country, the group happily tells the world about its vision. The statement reads,

With a driving force of more than 400,000 members and an online reach of over 4,000,000 across the nation, we envision a society based on human dignity that celebrates our all our communities. We understand that, in order to achieve this vision, how we do our work must be reflective of the kind of society we aim to create: multi-ethnic, interdependent, intersectional, and inter-generational, all connected and reliant upon one another to achieve the highest standards for our collective humanity and liberation.

We embrace the common struggle of all people of color and stand up against racism, colonialism, colorism, and xenophobia. We stand against sexism, misogyny and male-centered leadership while uplifting womxn leaders and the leadership of LGBTQ people. We work to make our spaces accessible to people of all abilities and seek to stand in solidarity and partnership with all who share our values.

So they’re a bunch of collectivists railing against racism, colonialism, colorism, and xenophobia. Yawn. We heard all that already from the folks at the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton rallies. Nothing new or interesting here. Just the usual Marxist rantings.

But not satisfied with advancing just a few of the standard SJW tropes, the United We Dream crowd wants you to know they stand foursquare against “sexism, misogyny and male-centered leadership while uplifting womxn (?) leadership and LGBTQ people.

All which is a roundabout way of saying that if you’re a straight, white, American male, you’re pretty much the devil.

Now someone remind me again just why it is I’m supposed to want these people as my neighbors and countrymen. For the life of me, deporting the lot of them yesterday would not be soon enough. I mean, we already have enough home grown lefty nut jobs who will gladly do the fashionable work of despising “deplorables” and the “bitter clingers” as it is. We certainly don’t need to import more of them from abroad.

United We Dream is also the group that organized the mob demonstration at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. last November. I mentioned this rally in last week’s post, but in case you missed it here’s a video clip of your wanna be fellow citizens in action.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/dream-act-now-students-lead-protest-inside-hart-senate-office-building/2017/11/09/ba34fb92-c58d-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_video.html?utm_term=.70b68fb7a89a

Yep. That’s just what America needs right now, a bunch of demanding, trespassing George Soros funded, loud mouthed foreign students petulantly demanding even more privilege. Especially at a time when actual American students are struggling to find jobs and pay off their student loans.

Out of the Abundance of the Heart the Mouth Speaks

The situation with the Dreamers is a complex issue. The Dreamers are a group of people who were brought to the US while children. Although they have lived most of their lives in the US, they are not American citizens. These are individuals, at least some of whom, probably are sympathetic cases.

So what are Americans to make of this group? As far as I am currently aware, there is no specific guidance from Scripture or from the Constitution that exactly fits the circumstance of the Dreamers. But that doesn’t mean we are without guidance.

From an economic perspective, Ron Paul opposed the DREAM Act when it was before Congress due to all the subsidies it contained. Doubtless any new version of the DREAM Act would be much the same, so Paul’s opposition to the previous iterations of the DREAM Act almost certainly could be applied to any new version cooked up in Congress.

But there’s another issue at play here. What is called prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutorial discretion is simply the idea that prosecutor and judges have room for discretion when it comes to bringing charges and passing sentences. If there are aggravating circumstances involved in an alleged criminals case, the prosecutor can throw the book at him. Likewise, if there are mitigating circumstances, a prosecutor can drop the case altogether or a judge can give a lesser sentence.

There is support for the idea of prosecutorial discretion in the Bible. The Law of Moses calls for death for murders and adulterers and King David was guilty of both. Yet he was not sentenced to death. Neither did Jesus allow the mob to stone the woman caught in adultery.

So what are we to do with the Dreamers? Are we to show clemency or give them the boot?

Future fellow citizens?  George Soros funded student demonstrators demand a clean DREAM Act now, Washington DC, November 9, 2017, Washington Post.

I submit that we should allow the words and actions of the Dreamers and their supporters to provide us guidance in the matter. After all, Jesus said “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” A man’s words tell you what’s in his heart.  So what do we learn about the Dreamers, at least from the very public representatives? We learn that they are angry, demanding, ungrateful. They show no fear of the law and even boast about it. Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, they ask not what they can do for the country, but what the country can do for them. They are leftist, Marxist, and socialist in their politics and economics. They evidence a real hatred of the American people, the same people who are their hosts and who have already provided them with a great deal more of financial support than they likely ever would have received in their native lands. They trespass with impunity. They are foul mouthed. They show no respect for government officials. They call Americans racists, white supremacists, and xenophobes at the drop of a hat. And when they don’t get their way, they throw temper tantrums.

I could go on, but you probably get the picture by now. The people who make the best case against the Dreamers are the Dreamers themselves and the organizations that support them.

“All of us or none of us,” chanted the crowd, interrupting Nancy Pelosi’s press conference, September 18, 2017, Lea Suzuki, Associated Press.  Well, since you put it that way…

Last year when some Dreamers decided it would be a good idea to take over Nancy Pelosi’s press conference with their insipid chanting, one of their lines was “All of us or none of us.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. So I’ll take them at their word and suggest none of them is by far the preferable option.