Running Down a Dream: AGs Make a Case Against DACA

Immigration enthusiasts at the Wall Street Journal and the open-borders Cato Institute have a dream, or, more properly, a nightmare. In their reverie, they see nine state attorneys general threatening to sue the Trump administration over the controversial program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

DACA — and its companion DAPA, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents — were created by Barack Obama to give legal status to millions of illegal aliens. DAPA and an expanded version of DACA were found unconstitutional by a federal court in a ruling that was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Journal acknowledges the “constitutional deficiencies” of both programs, yet vents its wrath on the protesting AGs, led by Texas’s Ken Paxton.

Weaving visions of mass roundups and deportations they claim would result from a successful challenge, the editorialists give cover to Obama’s extralegal maneuvers.

But in their hyperventilation, the Journal scribes apparently failed to read the AGs’ letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In it, Paxton & Co. specifically say their request “does not require the federal government to remove any alien.”

The letter simply states: “If, by September 5, 2017, the Executive Branch agrees to rescind (Obama’s) June 15, 2012 DACA memorandum and not to renew or issue any new DACA or Expanded DACA permits in the future, then the plaintiffs that successfully challenged DAPA and Expanded DACA will voluntarily dismiss their lawsuit currently pending in the Southern District of Texas.”

Having already prevailed in their earlier challenge, the AGs give the Trump administration ample grounds to pull the plug. If it demurs, the AGs say their pending complaint “will be amended to challenge both the DACA program and the remaining Expanded DACA permits.”

The administration should take heed and ignore the whimsical whining from the WSJ and Cato, which attacked Trump’s strong immigration agenda throughout the 2016 campaign. The editorialists’ latest assertion that “the state AGs would dedicate scarce enforcement resources to going door-to-door in a University of Texas dorm” hunting down illegal aliens is bad fiction divorced from any semblance of journalism. The advice to kick the decision to Capitol Hill is risible, given Congress’s inability to accomplish anything of substance, even as perennial amnesty advocates Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) attempt to resurrect the DREAM Act.

The AGs have it right. It’s time for the rule of law to prevail. If Paxton’s legal action forces the administration to a courtroom to defend the legality of DACA and DAPA, so be it.