George Santayana noted that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Apparently, Republicans refuse to learn from their past. They’re lurching toward another disastrous illegal alien amnesty. What’s worse, it is unclear why they’re rushing to sell-out the American public, when their party controls the House, the Senate, and the White House.
The Department of Justice has formally announced the cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA was an unconstitutional attempt to impose an illegal alien amnesty by executive fiat. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to overturn the program on his first day in office. However, after winning the White House, he waffled on the issue, expressing sympathy for the beneficiaries of the DACA program.
President Trump has finally honored his campaign pledge – sort of. The administration has stopped accepting new DACA applications. But it appears that, despite its termination, DACA just isn’t going to die. Congress has signaled that it may consider a legislative amnesty for all those covered under the program. And, the President, who has described the DACA beneficiaries as “incredible kids,” is highly unlikely to veto a bill that grants them legal status.
A handful of Republican legislators have already proposed a new version of the failed “DREAM Act,” a 2010 legislative amnesty that would have covered illegal aliens brought here as kids. The original DREAM Act flopped because Republican legislators, and a handful of Democrats, listened to their constituents and acknowledged that Americans want our borders secured and illegal aliens removed from the United States.
Voters disliked the DREAM Act largely because they were displeased with the path taken by the controversial 1986 amnesty, known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Rather than allowing the United States to “hit the reset button” on immigration, IRCA simply attracted millions of new illegal aliens who figured, if they could just stay in the U.S. long enough, they would benefit from the next amnesty.
And the illegal aliens were right, IRCA was extended several times between 1986 and 2002. Each extension was enacted to allow people who “missed out” to have a “fair chance to apply.” But every incarnation picked up between 500,000 and a million additional applicants – many of whom had no legitimate claim to eligibility.
If the “conservative DREAM Act” is passed, then we’re likely to see history repeat itself. New illegal aliens will flock to our borders, hoping to benefit from the next amnesty. And Congress will kowtow to anti-borders lobby groups who claim the program wasn’t fair to all of the illegals who began their relationship with the United States by ignoring our immigration laws.
There’s a famous pop culture quote, that echoes Santayana’s sage advice: “The very definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again, but expecting different results.” (No one is sure who said it, although it is sometimes erroneously attributed to Albert Einstein.) If the Republican Party continues down the path to a new amnesty, American voters will start wondering if they have truly lost their minds.