The Supreme Court in June agreed to decide whether the Trump administration lawfully canceled a program created by executive fiat by President Obama in 2012 that protected immigrants brought into the country illegally as children — popularly dubbed Dreamers — from deportation and be provided work permits.
Prior to that, such persons were subject to deportation by law.
The program is called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and is the subject of a case titled Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of University of California, et. al. This past week Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a friend of the court brief in the case on behalf of Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and the governors of Kansas and Montana.
“DACA recipients are members of the Nevada family, and we take care of our family,” Ford is quoted as saying in a press release announcing the filing. “By ending DACA, the Trump Administration turned its back on hundreds of thousands of young people who want nothing more than to continue living and working in the country they call home. Dreamers make America, and Nevada, great. I will continue to fight for them and for our Nevada family.”
The press release also quotes Gov. Steve Sisolak as saying, “Nevada’s 12,000 DACA recipients are hard-working members of our communities who contribute to our state every day. As Governor, I’m proud that Nevada is fighting back to defend our DREAMers against any attempts to undermine their protected status.”
In 2017 Trump announced his decision to cancel DACA, but several lower courts have blocked the move, saying the decision was arbitrary and capricious, because the administration failed to offer a sound rationale for changing course. Currently, the administration isn’t accepting new DACA applications, but continues to process renewals from Dreamers already in the program.
The attorney general’s court brief makes several compassionate arguments for why DACA should remain in force.
The brief notes that there are currently more than 669,000 DACA recipients in the United States who are able to work or attend school without fear of deportation. In Nevada, DACA recipients accounted for an estimated $261.8 million in spending power in 2015 and paid an estimated $19.9 million in state and local taxes, the brief states.
It goes on to point out that nationwide 73 percent of DACA grantees live with an American citizen spouse, child or sibling. “In Nevada, 27,600 individuals live in mixed-status households with an estimated 4,600 United States-born children of DACA recipients,” the brief relates. “Losing DACA status threatens to throw families into financial chaos, because many depend on the incomes and health insurance of the DACA recipients in their families. It also threatens to tear families apart, as native-born children of DACA recipients could be separated from their parents if removal proceedings are instituted against them.”
It also notes that residents who live in fear of deportation are less likely to report crimes or to seek proper medical care.
All true enough, but under our Constitution Congress writes laws, not the president or the courts. The Trump administration has expressed sympathy for the Dreamers, but four different bills to address immigration and the border wall failed this past year, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Rather than press litigation the governor and the attorney general should demand our congressional delegation get off the impeachment bandwagon and pass immigration reform legislation the proper way — or else uphold the law as written by Congress.
A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.
Protesters support DACA in 2017. (Getty Imagea)
4TH ST8 
The potential impeachment of the president rates not a line though?
Hard to understand. I’m assuming you have an opinion, and God knows it’s topical so what gives?
The Senate will not convict.
Without conviction and removal, impeachment is an empty threat.
Same as ….. OH LOOK! Squirrel!
I have nothing original to contribute. It would just be repeating what is already being said.
Besides, the whole thing is like an Arthur Miller play — a lot of screaming recriminations with no one really trying to reach a resolution.
That’s all well and fine Thomas but here’s what I think:
If we had a democratic president in office, in spite of all that would be said, you’d find an angle to add.
And yet, with a conservative in office, with all the avenues available, you apparently desire to remain silent.
A wise man once quoted here said that all that it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to remain silent.
Whatever happened to him I wonder?
Shame.
Trump is a conservative…what a laugh.
Trump is whatever best benefits Trump to be at any given time. The closest fitting word for Trump is “opportunist”
Correct. Trump is no conservative.
Trump is a conservatives wet dream come true.
There’s never been a more conservative acting President. Ever.
Course, it’s not unexpected that on the eve of his impeachment, that conservatives try and distance themselves ever so slightly from him.
Hell next thing you know, the laughingstock here will again be posting nonstop about how Trump was really running to guarantee a Hillary victory.
When he’s dumb, he’s really really dumb and when he’s not, check your calendar because chances are good that it’s February 29th.
No, Patrick (Anonymous). Trump is YOUR vision of a conservative. He is not a conservative and does not represent conservative mindsets.
He does, however, fully and completely represent YOUR view of what you BELIEVE conservatives to be.
Hillary Clinton owned the election, it was in ALL the POLLS, or did you conveniently forget that?
Hillary Clinton threw her own win out the window by ignoring those states the Trump campaign turned.
It is to laugh.
As usual, you are rawngy rawngenstien to the max.
The usual suspects around here though believe trump. Much the same way I might add, as trump himself professed to believe Putin after he asked him whether he interfered in US elections.
But probably…BengaI or something…
“President Trump’s ambassador to the European Union (EU), Gordon Sondland, plans to tell Congress this week that a text he sent denying understanding of quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in a July phone call in July was dictated by Trump himself.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/465552-sondland-to-tell-congress-no-quid-pro-quo-from-trump-report
And this hardly seems normal. Gee, I wonder why, after being told that what he wanted was illegal, that Grump would take the extraordinary step of having a political appointee take over to do his bidding?
Oddly enough, this was done just immediately before Trump spoke to the Ukrainian president, and directed him more than 7 times during one conversation to investigate an American politician that Trump considered his most likely opponent.
“The White House earlier this year authorized a politically appointed official to withhold military aid meant for Ukraine after budget staff members questioned the legality of delaying the congressionally approved funds, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/465235-amid-questions-of-legality-on-delaying-ukraine-aid-white-house
And yet, from the usual suspects here we get either stoned silence. Or “Trumps a liberal” or “I believe Putin…er ah Trump”
I fear for our republic
And let’s not ignore Trumps shallow excuse for illegally delaying the military aid to the Ukraine “corruption”, was blown out of the water by the Pentagon when they came out and said that the Ukraine was substantially complying with their duties regarding corruption and were therefore eligible for the aid.
“Earlier this week, President Trump cited concerns about corruption as his rationale for blocking security assistance to Ukraine. But in a letter sent to four congressional committees in May of this year and obtained by NPR, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood informed lawmakers that he “certified that the Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption [and] increasing accountability.”
The certification was required by law for the release of $250 million in security assistance for Ukraine. That aid was blocked by the White House until Sept. 11 and has since been released. It must be spent before Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.”
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/764453663/pentagon-letter-undercuts-trump-assertion-on-delaying-aid-to-ukraine-over-corrup
But yeah, dead silence from the usual suspects. Or, “I may not like Trump personally but a Putin said he believes him and that’s good enough for me. Oh, and by the way, Hillary’s emails and Hinter Biden sure seem guilty.
Patrick, you are the only one here calling Trump “Liberal” or even “Conservative”. Your sham is exposed. You are arguing only with your own words and your own beliefs.
And I have to call your reply a deflection, Steve. Why can’t you take his argument head on?
Rincon, Patrick makes up shit and argues it against the made up shit produced by Patrick.
That is a black hole of shit argument.
Read my response again, no one in this space (other than Patrick) calls DT a liberal or a conservative. I already bunked on the shit argument when I called DT an opportunist.
That was head on before the shit show.