The president signals his enthusiasm for amnesty. Why would immigration activists give an inch?
I argued during the GOP nomination battle that Trump is a phony on immigration. He camouflages this fact in provocative (and sometimes noxious) rhetoric about Mexicans and a border wall — a wall that would be physically impossible to build as he described it and that Mexico was never going to pay for. (Have you noticed our coming budget battle is over his insistence that American taxpayers foot the bill?) But if you listened carefully, there was always an amnesty subtext. Recall his truly absurd claims that he would round up and deport 11 million people and then bring most of them back with legal status.
Trump wants to be all things to all people: the restrictionist ideal of his rabid base as well as an amnesty enthusiast in the mold of a New York City Democrat.
The DACA sleight of hand proves the point. On the hustings, restrictionist Trump promised to rescind DACA as soon as he took office (and some people actually believed him). Of course, he did not do so . . . because he doesn’t think it should be rescinded; he thinks it should be law. But he wants credit for ending it — for being both against and for it. –
.. If DACA were narrowly drawn, strictly to benefit the immigrants whom Democrats and the GOP establishment portray as the typical DREAMer
.. There are two reasons it is not. First, it is not narrowly drawn; rather, it designed to shoehorn a broader array of illegal aliens into legal status. Second and more significantly, because Democrats (and many pro-amnesty Republicans) are insufficiently sympathetic to the demands of Americans for better security and tighter immigration controls, there must be tradeoffs if the ruling class is to be motivated to negotiate.
.. Art of the deal, huh?