The shame goes to Congress, not 'Dreamers'

The more than 20-year odyssey to legalize some children of immigrant parents has reached a new low.

- Mary Sanchez

“DreamersThe more than 20-year odyssey to legalize some children of immigrant parents has reached a new low.” do not have the right to exist without fear of being hauled off by federal officials and sent “home” to nations where they were born but not raised.

Their parents immigrated to the U.S., bringing them along, often as very young children. Toddlers know nothing of visas, checkpoints, and the complexities of U.S. immigration law.

This group of migrants are stuck, it is often said, “through no fault of their own.”

Many discover that they’re not right with immigration as teenagers when they try to get a driver’s license. If a person is here without the right documents, then nope – he or she cannot drive in most states.

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act was first introduced to Congress in 2001. It never passed. We refer to it and the people it was intended to help by its acronym – Dreamers.

Just recently, a federal court put a serious gash in this flimsy hope – first put forward by the Obama administration – of resolving the status of these immigrant children on U.S. soil.

Former President Barack Obama, like his presidential predecessors and successors, failed to muster the political will necessary to pass substantial immigration reform. Recall that Democrats controlled both the House and Senate early in his first term.

Instead of using that political gift to do some permanent good for this group, he eventually passed an executive order in 2012 that’s known by the acronym DACA, which stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.