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President Donald Trump appeared to back away from a potential deal with Democrats to legislate an extension of protections to about 800,000 young adults who arrived in the United States as unauthorized immigrant minors as reports suggest that any deal will hinge on a trade-off stiffening immigration enforcement and cutting legal immigration by half.
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While still unfinished, the White House proposal is being drafted by Stephen Miller, a former aide to Jeff Sessions and current top immigration aide for Trump who also spearheaded the crafting of the so-called “Muslim Ban.”
The 31-year old Miller is expected to include large portions of the RAISE Act – which he described as a “pro-American immigration reform” – in any potential deal to extend protections to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, or DACA, beneficiaries. The bill will also include policies described by critics as extreme, such as extending an immigration law enforcement mandate to local police agencies.
Since it was authorized in 2012 by President Barack Obama, the program – which allowed holders of the status legally find employment, open bank accounts and live free of the fear of deportation – has been a major target for Trump's white nationalist and anti-immigrant base. During his election campaign, he promised to deport the DACA beneficiaries. Upon assuming office, Trump pledged that “the dreamers are terrific” and that they have “nothing to worry about,” confusing his supporters and opponents alike.
According to a report by Politico, Miller was infuriated by a dinner Trump had with Democratic Party leaders last month where he held negotiations on the fate of DACA holders and left a White House meeting pledging that a solution was in the cards. The move also alienated his nativist base. Since then, he has been working hard to lure the president back to the tough anti-immigrant stance he used during his campaign.
Miller's work showed its results Tuesday when Republican lawmakers said that extending protections would hinge on a bill that would solely address the 800,000 current DACA recipients while also toughening up the already-strict immigration enforcement regime.
“The president was very clear. Any effort to codify DACA needs to, one, be limited to DACA so the first criteria under the law should be you have a DACA permit today,” Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said. “Second, any deal has to end chain migration. And then third, it ought to include some kind of enhanced measures, whether it’s on the border or interior enforcement or what have you.”
The demands were also included in the RAISE Act, which Cotton and fellow Republican Senator David Perdue sponsor and Miller introduced from the White House in August. The bill was panned by Democrats as well as moderate Republicans, while migrant rights advocates blasted the bill as reflecting the radical ideology of anti-immigrant extremists like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, FAIR. At the time, the Southern Poverty Law Center said: “Its provisions reflect the shameful agenda of nativists and white nationalists who fear the growing diversity of our country.”
“Handing Stephen Miller the pen on any DACA deal after the revolt from their base is the quickest way to blow it up,” a senior Democratic Senate aide told Politico.
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The tradeoff wouldn't end with RAISE provisions alone. The White House would also attempt to include sections of the Davis-Oliver Act, such as measures granting state and local law enforcement the power to enforce immigration law in a manner similar to Arizona's notorious former-Sheriff Joe Arpaio. States would also be allowed to write their own immigration laws and determine the criminal penalties for entering the U.S. without authorization, which is currently an administrative rather than a criminal violation of the law.
The Davis-Oliver Act provisions would also include a requirement that Congress be in charge of designating Temporary Protected Status, ensuring that it would be caught in legislative gridlock and immigrants would lose the right to temporarily stay in the U.S. Due to natural disasters and dangerous circumstances in their home countries.
Extensions of DACA benefits would also require that Congress funds border security to the tune of billions of dollars, including more funding for detention beds and facilities as well as immigration judges.
The latest White House move was anticipated by migrant advocates across the country who took the promises of “compromise” from Trump and the Democrat leadership with more than a grain of salt.
Speaking to teleSUR last month following the announcement that DACA would be phased out, undocumented community organizer Maru Mora Villalpando all-too-accurately described the political calculus of the White House's moves to hold so-called “Dreamers” hostage in the “declared war against immigrants” Trump has championed:
“It is clear this is a political move to continue dividing our communities by trying to engage young immigrants in the false narrative of 'deserving,' 'well behaved,' 'economy contributors' that do deserve to stay and at the same time push for a legislation that would fund vast immigration enforcement and the construction of a bigger wall in the southern border,” she told teleSUR.
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