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Election 2024: Both Biden and Trump are soft on illegal immigration
As the 2024 election draws near, the duopoly run by Democrats and Republicans for the benefit of Democrats and Republicans have decided that Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be their standard bearers. With that in mind, I have updated a recent five-part series showing the lack of discernable policy differences between the two. So far, we’ve looked at how both Biden and Trump embrace COVID tyranny and the tyranny of abortion. In Part III, we’ll examine their simpatico policies in the area of illegal immigration.
Having served as Obama’s vice president for eight years, Joe Biden clearly had a role in the disastrous immigration policies his former boss pushed on the American people, usually using his pen and phone to do so. Two of Obama’s most notable policies were his 2012 executive order known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — later known as DREAMers — and his 2014 executive order granting amnesty and “legal status” for millions of adult illegal immigrants who would later become known as Democrat voters.
Obama’s amnesty order would later be ruled unconstitutional by the 5th Circuit of Appeals, a decision upheld by the US Supreme Court, but after beating Donald Trump, Joe Biden picked up where his former boss left off.
After taking office in January 2021, Biden acted on a number of fronts to advance Obama’s immigration policies by immediately issuing a memo to protect DACA and DREAMers, and he ordered the Department of Homeland Security to take “all appropriate actions under the law” to preserve the program. He also called on Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship for illegals covered under the program.
This led to a lawsuit filed by Texas and a coalition of states against the administration on the grounds that DACA violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Constitution. Federal Judge Andrew Hanen agreed and blocked DACA enforcement (via FOX News):
Judge Andrew Hanen, a Texas judge, found that the Department of Homeland Security violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in creating the policy. He found that the policy was implemented unlawfully and ordered DHS to stop approving DACA applications, although he said it could continue to accept applications and that it does not affect the status of any current DACA recipients.
“DACA would grant lawful presence and work authorization to over a million people for whom Congress had made no provision and has consistently refused to make such a provision,” Hanen wrote.
Biden appealed Hanen’s ruling, calling the decision “deeply disappointing.” Biden also pointed out that “only Congress can ensure a permanent solution by granting a path to citizenship for DREAMers that will provide the certainty and stability that these young people need and deserve.”
Biden also took steps to restore Obama’s executive amnesty plan, a plan to provide millions of illegal immigrants already in the country a pathway to legal status. Under Biden’s proposal, an eight-year path to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants would be created while updating existing family-based immigration systems.
Recently, Biden addressed his plan to “update” family-based immigration when he announced a plan to grant amnesty to over one million spouses who entered the US illegally before marrying American citizens.
You can find out more about Biden’s Obama-esque immigration agenda in this 2022 report by the Pew Research Center.
After eight years under Obama’s “leadership,” illegal immigration was a big issue in the 2016 election, and Donald Trump played the “never let a crisis go waste” card to leverage that concern. Trump promised to build a wall and “have Mexico pay for it” and he promised to overturn his predecessor’s DACA executive order even though he secretly agreed with Obama’s pro-amnesty policies.
Republicans promised to work with Donald Trump to “rescind” DACA and fix the illegal immigration problem, but just like abortion, government spending, and pretty much every other conservative priority, they merely used the issue to raise money and steal votes with no intention of rescinding it because they fully supported and wanted to save it.
In an interview with Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Trump was asked about his plan to rescind Obama’s DACA and DREAM Act executive orders and how he would deal with illegal immigrants already in the country under those orders. In his usual non-specific way, Trump assured Todd “that it will work out so well” that he will insist on another interview near the end of Trump’s first term and would declare “What a great job you’ve done, President Trump.”
After winning the 2016 election, Time Magazine named Trump their “Person of the Year.” In his interview with Time, Trump was asked about the millions of DREAMers in the country at the time due to Obama’s DACA executive order and his promise to deport them. His answer confirmed his equivocation on the matter.
“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud. They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”
A few weeks after moving into the White House, Trump made it clear that he had no intention of overturning DACA when he elected to keep Obama’s order in place, thus allowing one million DREAMers — the estimated number at the time — to stay in the country.
A few months later, Donald Trump took another step in support of illegal immigration when he issued his fake executive order “rescinding” Obama’s DACA order. But instead of rescinding it, he gave Congress six months to make it permanent . . . or else. In other words, he lied.
Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
In January 2018, Trump introduced what he called “a bill of love” to fix DACA. In a meeting with Democrats at the time, Trump admitted that his position on DACA would be whatever Congress tells him it should be, and he agreed to sign any bill brought to his desk because he had “confidence” Congress would come up with something “really good.” He also promised to “take the heat” from his base for lying about bringing an end to DACA.
In January 2019, Trump appointed son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner to the Gang of Twenty, a group created to revive Lindsey Graham’s Gang of Eight for the purpose of designing a plan to grant amnesty and an eventual pathway to citizenship for millions of so-called DREAMers and make DACA permanent in exchange for border wall funding. One of the proposals presented by Kushner and Graham was an offer to Democrats to save DACA in exchange for border wall funding . . . WITHOUT CONDITIONS!
In the days leading up to the 2020 election, and with his chance of victory fading away, Trump announced that he would be signing “a very major immigration bill” that would provide a “road to citizenship” to the innumerable illegal aliens enrolled in Obama’s DACA program. Though he referred to it as a “bill,” he confirmed that he would use an executive order to accomplish the task:
BREAKING: President Trump tells Telemundo’s @jdbalart he will sign an executive order on immigration that will include DACA in the coming weeks. #mtpdaily
Trump: “One of the aspects of the bill is going to be DACA. We are going to have a road to citizenship.” pic.twitter.com/M926cty8A1
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 10, 2020
Donald Trump never intended to rescind DACA, and he has always favored creating a path to citizenship for the hundreds-of-thousands millions of illegal immigrants already in the country. He just wanted it re-branded with his name on it instead of Obama’s.
As the 2024 election approaches, it’s clear there are no differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the issues of illegal immigration, DACA, and amnesty.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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