UPDATE #2: Politico reports that Rep. Mike Coffman will try to force a vote on legislation to protect DACA beneficiaries next week when Congress reconvenes:
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) said Thursday he’ll attempt to force a vote on a bill that would extend protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors.
When he returns to Washington next week, Coffman said he’ll file what’s known as a “discharge petition” to force action on his proposal, known as the BRIDGE Act. If he can convince a majority of the House — 218 members — to join him, the House will be required to take up the measure later in September.
Coffman’s rarely used gambit comes amid reports that President Donald Trump may roll back an Obama-era program meant to protect undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors. The program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, has shielded about 800,000 immigrants from deportation and provided work permits.
Coffman’s move can be expected to pick up Democratic support, but the real question is whether enough Republicans can be persuaded to go along with this to get a majority. If it does, obviously Coffman will get credit for that. But if Republican leadership holds the majority caucus together against it, it’s a futile gesture.
Stay tuned.
—–
UPDATE: From the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR):
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has allowed millions of immigrant young people to come forward and apply for protection from deportation and find opportunities in work and education. Most importantly, it has helped to keep families together and make young people in our community feel safe.
We are hearing that this administration is threatening to eliminate this program – a truly callous and craven move. This would force many people in our community to live in fear. We are disheartened they would even consider getting rid of DACA. Immigrants want to be able to be part of and contribute to their communities and to provide a better life for themselves and their children. It is the archaic and cruel policies that make it difficult for people to do so. We need to fix this broken system and do all we can to keep families together.
—–
The Hill reporting–a moment many in the immigrant rights community have dreaded, hard-right anti-immigration demagogues like Tom Tancredo have demanded, and GOP Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado wishes had never come, as word that President Donald Trump will rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, putting hundreds of thousands of America’s most sympathy-inspiring undocumented immigrants–those who came here as children through no fault of their own–in danger of deportation.
President Trump plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program “as it exists today” on Friday, Fox News reports.
Under DACA, nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children have received work permits and deferral from deportation.
According to Fox, a senior administration official told correspondent John Roberts that Trump would end the program “as early as” Friday.
The program, instituted through an executive order signed by President Obama in 2012, is facing a legal challenge from Texas and nine other states, which threatened court action to attempt to block it unless Trump rescinds DACA by Sept. 5.
We are awaiting word from local politicos on all sides, and we’ll update with statements as they come in. Rep. Coffman in particular, who once declared “the DREAM Act will be a nightmare for the American people” but did an about-face on the issue after being redistricted into a more diverse district, we assume will be as publicly displeased with this action as possible–along with some other “moderate” Republicans who have paid lip service to protecting DACA beneficiaries.
The reason is simple: although pleasing to a narrow segment of particularly vindictive Americans, stripping these kids, students, and workers of the only life they have ever known is an absolute political disaster for Republicans. Whether or not Coffman’s “Paul on the road to Damascus” conversion on immigration is legitimate or a contrived survival tactic in his new district is now irrelevant. This is an action that will define the Republican Party for years to come with the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the United States.
And Mike Coffman is a Republican. Trump is his President.
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Your lame attempt to provoke fighting among Republicans notwithstanding, this is a nation of laws and Trump is enforcing the law. He will have more support for that than making exceptions for all the things liberals want like marijuana and sanctuary cities. You don't know what Trump will replace DACA with, he might decide to make exceptions for those who haven't committed crimes or want to serve in the military, etc.
It is time for America's laws to matter again, liberals. If you are against that you are on the wrong side of history. Protecting the rule of law matters more than any one individual, citizen or not.
If you want laws to "matter", why do you defend an ex-sheriff who ignored sex crimes even aganst chilren on his watch?
Fun fact: being unlawfully present in the United States is not a crime. It is, instead, a civil violation, like a parking ticket.
I guess Denver could get a real handle on downtown parking problems if, instead of issuing parking tickets, police could have cars hauled away, tossed over the line into Aurora, and forbid drivers from coming into Denver again.
Unfun fact: while in most cases it is true that illegal immigration is a civil offense, it is equally true that deportation is a civil remedy, not a criminal punishment.
Splitting hairs is small comfort for families destroyed by deportation.
Whoosh! Here's the elementary school version.
You know how sometimes your mommy or daddy parks the car and when you get back there's a ticket on it? That's how society deals with things that aren't a big deal.
Some children were brought to this country by their mommies and daddies. It's not a crime for those kids to be our country, and it isn't a big deal, either–those kids have grown up here, go to school, and love this country just like you! So there's no need to be really mean to them and kick them out.
That's a pretty good political argument, OT. But saying there is "no need" is miles away from saying "the law says you can't do it.".
Maybe when you get out of elementary school you will go to law school and hear somebody explain the difference.
Love this . I'm teaching younger kids this year, as well, and they need very simplistic and literal explanations. It's a keeper.
Re: V's hair splitting below:
Yes, people can be deported, and the law allows that. To carry the parking ticket analogy further, a driver can lose the ability to register a car if they don't pay tickets, or lose their driver's license if they have too many moving violations.
But to be "really mean"? i.e. , to be locked up without contact with family, without being notified of charges, made to work for free without being charged as a criminal, subjected to violence and sexual violence if female or a child, to be exploited and have wages stolen from menial work…all of these penalties are "really mean" ways of treating those who come into the country without documents.
And yes, they are against the Constitution's 5th & 14th amendments in some cases, and against the law in other cases.
If he is simply enforcing laws, Fluffy, explain why……….
He opposed DACA while running for president.
Then he supported the program while labeling the kids who benefited from it "incredible."
Now he opposes the program.
Here's how it works.
1) Coffman votes for Ryan for Speaker.
2) Coffman puts up doomed bill.
3) Democrats and the press praise Coffman.
4) Ryan makes sure bill dies.
5) Coffman votes for Ryan for Speaker again.
6) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(FUCK THIS BULLSHIT)
"It's time for America's laws to matter again, liberals." So, can we then assume that you want President Trump to obtain another approval from Congress for upgrading the effort in Afghanistan? After all, Bush ignored the war powers of Congress for both Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody objected much to Afghanistan after 9-11, but Iraq was a different story.
This is so wrong on so many levels:
The money/ investment level:
Why educate someone for years, promise them a path to citizenship, invest in their futures just to throw them out of the country when they become old enough to start contributing?
The human level: Take the boundless optimism, confidence, and energy of young people and force them into being paranoid, fearful, and working in dead-end jobs for fear of being deported? What a terrible waste.
The moral level: Be a country that promises "liberty and justice for all", then break promises and show yourself to be catering to the most bigoted cowards of all in making policy decisions. Way to abdicate leadership in the world.
Grrrr. IF Coffman does reintroduce the BRIDGE Act , and if it hasn't been amended and made into meaningless mush, or if there's nothing better with a chance of passage, then I suppose it will be time to call all our delegation and pressure them to vote for it.
From what I've read, the Bridge Act is at most a "kick the can down the road until the next Presidential election" bill – it goes into effect for three years maximum, starting from the date it is enacted. It stops deportations of Dreamers, makes them OK to work in the US, but does NOT offer a path to citizenship. Typical Republican self-serving policy. GOP doesn't actually want to enfranchise 800,000 Dem-leaning citizens, now does it?
Actually it's not a "self-serving Republican policy," but is an equivalent of committing political suicide. Some may recall 1994 when Republican governor Pete Wilson pushed a hard core immigration bill in the California legislature. It did not pass and the party has yet to recover from that debacle. Bush did little about illegal immigration because business owners wanted the cheap labor. Truth will hurt for Moderatus, but Obama deported more illegals in his first term than Bush did in both of his terms.
At this point in time, repeal of DACA makes little sense, although it will save a bit of money for DOJ in defending the lawsuit brought by Texas and several other red states.
It did not pass and the party has yet to recover from that debacle
Very true, CHB, but it did get Wilson re-elected which was the only thing that mattered to Pete Wilson.
News reports out this morning … "The U.S. economy created 156,000 jobs in August while the unemployment rate edged higher to 4.4 percent."
And now, DACA. Even the conservative CATO Institute thinks DACA creates a reasonable economic benefit, and ending it would be a substantial detriment.
So if the program is ended, the Sad!-ministration and its deleterious leader will show how they respond to their most racist and ignorant base even when it is in the economic best interests NOT to.