What's Compassionate About Kicking 800,000 Young People Out Of The One Country They've Ever Really Called Home?
By Thom Hartmann A...
Eight months into a presidency chock full of cruel and callous decisions, Donald Trump might have just made his most cruel and callous decision yet.
Protesters took the streets in Washington, DC and across the country yesterday after the Trump administration officially announced the end of DACA.
DACA - better known as the "dreamer program" - was created by President Obama and allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children to stay and legally work in the US, the only country they've ever really known.
Under Trump's plan, Congress will have 6 months to come up with an alternative to DACA, after which time the program will expire - putting 800,000 immigrants at risk of being deported.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the repeal of DACA "compassionate":
"We are a people of compassion and we are a people of law. But there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws.
Enforcing the law saves lives, protects communities and taxpayers, and prevents human suffering. Failure to enforce the laws in the past has put our nation at risk of crime, violence and even terrorism.
The compassionate thing is to end the lawlessness, enforce our laws, and, if Congress chooses to make changes to those laws, to do so through the process set forth by our Founders in a way that advances the interest of the nation."
Under what possible definition of the word "compassionate" is it "compassionate" to throw 800,000 people out of the only country they've ever called home?
Comments
#2
The leader of any nation number one job is national security. To protect its citizens you have to control your borders. A great leader makes decisions based on the law of his land not emotion. A poor leader makes decisions based on what will get him re elected, not what is in the best interest of his country. The illegal border crossings that are happening there are insane. It is so unfair to the law abiding people who follow all the rules hopefully to be excepted into the US to watch people break the law and to be able to stay. The law does not have rules on age. It is so sad but a nation without law is doomed.
#3
The DACA will end in a few months if congress does nothing to make it a law. trump is generating another smoke screen while the corrupt republicans work to install the corporation approved federal judges, cut social security and Medicare while the propaganda press media is blinded by the screams of the innocent bystanders.
#4
Speaking from a 'farmer's' point of view...I have met, and know, many who came to this Country illegally as children. In many cases their younger siblings are here legally, having been born here...and in some cases the parents are now here legally as they were able to return to Mexico one at a time to qualify for legal status...leaving the 'oldest son...so to speak' the only one here illegally. I have yet to meet anyone but hard working folks.
Sad state of affairs
I use Mexico as the example as it's the border most discussed.
#5
The Dreamers are actually refugees. We should treat them with respect, love, and grace.
#6
Kend (#2):
Don't be a Fox-bot: "Yup, the more laws the guvmut piles on real people the better; the less laws regulating war-mongering, polluting, transnational mega-corporations that cross borders freely, searching for wars to fight, starvation wages to pay, and environments to pollute, is even better!"
Artificially created by right-wing, 5-4 Supreme Court decisions, these hybrid corporate super "humans" are the real threat to national security and our democratic republic! Dreamers add to the vitality of our nation; the nightmares of Republicans drain it.
FYI: The U.S. Constitution stipulates that the People have "representatives," not "leaders." Furthermore, the oath our president takes (the "number one job") is to protect the Constitution.
#7
If we're a nation of laws as General Beauragard says, then why in hell isn't Trump in jail for hiring "illegals" on his construction projects? ...and why in hell aren't all of the employers who refuse to pay a living wage and instead hire desperate "illegals" at poverty wage level...why aren't they in jail????
#8
That's a lie that the right loves to say all the time ignorning the fact that Executive orders are not constitunional and all your so called right wing republican presidents have done alot more of your so called unconsitutional Exectutive orders then President Obama did, way more. And Trump every one of his orders as with this one has been an Executive order.
#9
trump, I will never call president has zero compasion just hate and greed. This is no surprize at all.
#10
Bachmann....how many executive orders has Crooked Donny signed so far ????? LMAO So much for your legislative branch bull, or was it just not cool when Obama did it?
#11
Unrelated: Not a single right-wing person I know has any idea what an Oligarch is, but they all know the word Fascist stands for something bad...just saying. But then again Dems always have a hard time with offense.
#12
I think this is the follow up distraction to Russia Did It and The Wall. I'm more concerned about the possibility of government manipulated weather, the removal of citizens to detention camps, the declaration of Martial Law, and a government-grab by the New World Order crazies. WE seem to be the only ones who constantly take our eyes of what is really going on here. Fascism is defined as when corporations take over the influence of government. Neo-fascism is when oligarchs DO take over the government. If the current government wasn't Neo-fascist in its goals, it would be ordering the removal of such things as the Georgia Guide Stones which calls for the death of 6.5 billion human beings, the rescinding of Posse Comitatus, and the reinstatement of habeas corpus. It only takes a few simple questions to be able to decide exactly where things are in this country. We'd better wake up and get on it. Time HAS run out and we are underwater up up to our eyebrows.
#13
Ou812 should read up on Executive Orders. Reagan and Bush signed a lot more than Obama did. Are they unconstitutional only when a Democrat signs them? Or a black President? At Trumps current pace (45 in first 6 months) he will set the record of executive orders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(United_States)
#14
Each side tells a different story. One side claims everyone is getting kicked out. The other claims we 're going to make their residence permanent instead of having to keep renewing. Much confusion for me.
#15
Executive Orders (EOs) are legally binding orders given by the President, acting as the head of the Executive Branch, to Federal Administrative Agencies. Executive Orders are generally used to direct federal agencies and officials in their execution of congressionally established laws or policies
Executive orders cannot make new law as DACA does
#16
The common excuse for writting large numbers of executive orders is "congress refuses to cooperate with me" In all eight years in office Obama never figured out how to work with the opposition, President Trump not being a Republican, will.
#17
It is an immigration policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-...
For Diane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Ask_What_Good_We_Do
Lou Dobbs says Paul Ryan is not a Republican. Who The *%# is then?
http://theweek.com/speedreads/723151/trump-fan-lou-dobbs-celebrates-trum...
#18
I don't understand why it is not said more often that the undocumented hardly broke laws to get here. Businesses wanted them here - labor for low wages and help in suppressing wages for citizens. Now, 20 years later, we suddenly want to enforce long broken laws. As with most things Republicans do these days, they have a hard time coming up with a logical explanation for their actions.
#19
In the feeble, brainwashed, Fox/Republican/Trump mind (one in the same), there is no difference between deporting Dreamers -- productive AMERICANS who broke no laws themselves, brought across the border as innocent children and therefore not responsible for the actions of their parents -- and pardoning ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio, a long-term, criminally minded bigot and racist who repeatedly committed felony hate crimes, knowingly and deliberately violated federal laws by illegally targeting minorities on the basis of their outward appearance and color of skin, and then knowingly and deliberately defied a federal judge's explicit order to cease and desist.
This saggy-faced old bigot and vicious subhuman animal deserves nothing but a cage in the hot sun, pink underwear, and one skimpy meal a day. (Besides, like Hermann Goering, the fat bastard needs to be placed on a forced diet while he broods about a wasted life in a tiny cell.) Even his own constituents, FINALLY, ran him out of office and replaced him with a good Democrat.
Sooo... OF COOOURSE the immoral, shameless fool posing as president -- another illegal asshole in serious violation of federal law and human decency (the logical and expected conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation) -- would pardon a dangerous criminal (white-skinned) while ordering the deportation of innocent American children (brown-skinned) to violent, gang-infested failed states, where their chance of surviving into old age is near zero.
In Republican Bizarro Land, petty minds think alike.
#20
God bless so many of you malcontent leftie/socialists, you made it another Christmas morning. Thank you for your daily dose of bitterness.
#21
...And there's your proof, jury of peers, that in Republican World, petty minds think alike.
#22
Diane, What is more bitter? The Democrats that have compassion for the 800000 dreamers, that were brought up in this country with our language and schooling. Or the Republican plan to round them up and deport them, even though their parents worked underpaid jobs as maids and landscapers or menial construction jobs for Republicans. I would say that you are a very bitter person.
#23
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The Executive order issued by President Obama is unconstitutional. We are are Democracy, not a monarchy. It's up to congress to pass legislation. Congress will have to set aside there differences and come up with a solution to the immigration issue. Kudos to President Trump for having the courage to stand up against this unlawful executive order.