Will Trump Really Give Up on Revoking DACA to Build the Wall?

To get the border wall, President Donald Trump plans to disregard another major pledge to the voters: Getting rid of President Barack Obama’s amnesty for illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

Those children are also known as “DREAMers,” for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, the name of the executive order Obama issued in June 2012, at the height of his re-election campaign.

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Critics of the related Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) say it is illegal. The counterpart order, for parents, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), was issued by Obama in 2014 — but frozen by courts in February 2015. But DACA has remained, despite President Trump’s promise during the campaign to get rid of both orders.

It’s unclear why. Even Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — who supports keeping a DACA-type law, passed by Congress — says the executive order is unconstitutional.

But instead, according to a Tuesday report from the McClatchy newspaper chain, Trump will abandon his promise and use DACA as a bargaining chip for the construction of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, along with some other immigration priorities of the White House.

“The White House officials want Trump to strike an ambitious deal with Congress that offers DREAMers protection in exchange for legislation that pays for a border wall and more detention facilities, curbs legal immigration, and implements E-verify, an online system that allows businesses to check immigration status, according to a half-dozen people familiar with [the] situation, most involved with the negotiations,” McClatchy reported.

McClatchy noted the officials lobbying Trump to turn his back on his DACA promise are his daughter, Ivanka Trump; son-in-law Jared Kushner; economic adviser Gary Cohn; H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser; and John Kelly, the new chief of staff.

The story said Kelly is going to incredible lengths to limit the discussion inside the White House, including by keeping Stephen Miller, the president’s policy adviser, from talking to Trump directly.

Still, Trump has been dragging his feet for months on repealing DACA. Because DACA is an executive order, he can simply revoke it.

Upon taking office in January, some of Trump’s most diehard supporters who oppose illegal immigration noticed the days of January going by without a repeal of DACA.

Mark Krikorian, the executive director of Center for Immigration Studies, wrote on January 23 that Trump did not “immediately” terminate DACA, which processes paperwork for about 800 people per business day. As many as 800,000 DREAMers live in the United States, and DACA requires regular paperwork.

He noted that yanking DACA would not cause a wave of deportations, because the Trump administration said they would focus on violent offenders in the illegal alien population.

“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles the two-year, renewable amnesty program, could easily have been instructed to suspend processing of DACA applications — both for renewals and first-time applicants — until further notice,” Krikorian wrote in January. “That hasn’t happened, at least not yet.”

He told LifeZette on Tuesday that he understands why DACA is a bargaining chip, but that he worries Trump doesn’t have the negotiating acumen in politics that he had in business. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) likely senses Trump is desperate to get the wall built, and will keep any deal confined to DACA and the wall. Further, DACA proponents believe they have thrown a hot potato in Trump’s hands — he likely does not want to expel people who grew up in America — so they shouldn’t have to negotiate on things they detest, such as the wall or the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act.

Adding on the RAISE Act, which would limit legal immigration, is unlikely, as Schumer harshly opposes reducing the ballooning number of legal immigrants.

“My concern is, is there anyone in the White House or Congress committed to driving a hard bargain [with the Democrats]?” said Krikorian.

McClatchy’s story, as well as Trump’s use of the term “comprehensive immigration reform,” has already riled up some of the most hardcore opponents of illegal immigration.

William Gheen, the head of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said Trump is behaving like he isn’t the same person he was during the 2016 campaign. So many of Gheen’s members are Trump supporters, however, that Gheen says he has a hard time telling them Trump is abandoning a primary campaign pledge.

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“It’s a very difficult message for us,” he said, speaking to LifeZette on Tuesday. “A lot of people don’t want to believe it.”

Gheen and the organization dropped their support of Trump in May, perhaps as a way to lobby Trump long before the 2020 re-election efforts. Many of ALIPAC’s supporters, he said, are demoralized.

“We’re trapped between Democrats, and Republicans who lie during the election about opposing amnesty,” said Gheen. “It’s not fake news … This isn’t fake news. This is really happening.”

The use of “comprehensive immigration reform,” he said, was a signal that Trump is now aligned with a group he calls “the globalists,” people who want open borders.

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Gage Skidmore, Flickr)