Democrats Paranoid Trump Will Use DACA Info for Roundups

Administration officials tried Tuesday — largely unsuccessfully — to reassure Senate Democrats that they have no plans to use information provided by so-called “dreamers,” beneficiaries of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, to round up and deport them.

Multiple Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed fear during a hearing Tuesday that President Donald Trump will use the home addresses and other information provided by applicants to his predecessor’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to deport them once the program winds down.

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Administration officials testified that information stored by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency would not be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers or Customs and Border Protection officials unless a specific DACA enrollee poses a public safety or national security risk.

James McCament, the acting director of USCIS, testified that the policy has not changed since the Department of Homeland Security created the DACA program in 2012 under then-President Barack Obama.

McCament repeated this after Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) asked if the information could be used to target DACA enrollees.

Both McCament and Michael Dougherty, assistant homeland security secretary for border, immigration and trade policy, reiterated that the policy could change. But Dougherty said the administration does not intend to seek out DACA enrollees absent a national security threat.

“We don’t have any plans to target any dreamers based on any information that we have received,” he said.

Wednesday looms as the deadline for DACA enrollees whose permits will expire between now and March 5 to apply for them to be renewed for another two years. After that, permits that expire will not be renewed, and the administration no longer is accepting new applications.

DACA protects illegal immigrants brought to America as children from deportation and issues them permits to work legally in the United States. To get that status, they had to submit to a criminal background check. Their home addresses and fingerprints are on file.

Democrats Not Reassured
Committee Democrats did not seem to trust the assurances that McCament and Dougherty offered.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said using the information DACA enrollees provided would be wrong.

“I’m unaware of any rogue activity on the part of ICE. ICE is beholden with following the administration’s directives.”

“I think it would represent a shocking betrayal of the trust they put in us,” he said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) agreed that it would be unfair to renege on a promise Obama made when his administration invited them to apply.

But Jessica Vaughan, an expert witness at the hearing, said the Obama administration was in no position to make such a promise.

“The problem is that the Obama administration really could not make that promise with any certainty because the policy they created was improperly done,” she said.

Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, pointed out that the Obama administration always acknowledged that DACA was not formal legal status. She testified that Obama officials described the policy as “prosecutorial discretion” that could be conferred on a case-by-case basis.

“With all due respect, I’m not sure that they really did make that promise,” she said.

Regardless, Vaughan said, DACA recipients who have not committed crimes would not be priority for immigration officials.

“I don’t expect, and I don’t see any sign — and it would be logistically very difficult — so I don’t think that it’s going to happen that all of sudden, people who had DACA are going to become enforcement priorities,” she said. “That just wouldn’t make any sense.”

‘Rouge Missions’ for ICE?
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said he worries about ICE agents’ freelancing in targeting illegal immigrants who do not meet enforcement priorities and employing tactics not authorized by administration guidelines. He noted that the ICE union endorsed Trump in the 2016 campaign.

“They may feel empowered to go off on their own on rogue missions,” he said.

Dougherty denied that.

“I’m unaware of any rogue activity on the part of ICE,” he said. “ICE is beholden with following the administration’s directives.”

Democrats also accused Trump of creating uncertainty and fear among DACA recipients. By ending the program, Blumenthal said, the Trump administration is “washing its hands of real leadership.”

Franken said revoking DACA would be in an “odd way, shooting ourselves in the foot.”

He added that removing their protections is “a disgrace to our national values and our moral principles.”

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) noted that he has been trying to pass the DREAM Act for 16 years. He objected to testimony from the government witnesses that the administration was trying to wind down the DACA program in an “orderly” and “efficient” manner.

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“It’s painful to say those words,” he said. “Because there’s nothing orderly or efficient about exposing hundreds of thousands of young people to deportation and telling them they can no longer work.”

The Democrats seemingly ignore their role and chief responsibility to write the laws. Trump has signaled a willingness to support legislation to give amnesty to dreamers. McCament and Dougherty expressed support, too.

Dougherty said it is “not a good model” for the country to have a large class of non-citizens living permanently in America with no chance for citizenship. He said many DACA enrollees have contributed to the country.

“They’re a benefit to the country, as are many immigrants coming in … They are a valuable contribution to our society,” he said. “We need to regularize their status through some legal means.”

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Molly Adams, Flickr)