Show me the wall money: Trump refuses to trade border wall funding for a DACA extension

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

The Trump administration is holding firm in negotiations with lawmakers by refusing to swap temporary border wall funding for a temporary extension of a controversial Obama-era program that shields young illegal aliens from deportation, according to reports.

The president has been accused of sending mixed messages in recent months about immigration and border security, so this apparently principled stance ought to please the president’s conservative electoral base which has been questioning his commitment to fixing the nation’s immigration-related problems. The administration is insisting on wall funding, limiting or ending chain migration, and abolishing the diversity green card lottery.

The deal the Washington Post reported this week was under consideration would provide three years of wall funding and a three-year extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that President Obama created unconstitutionally with the stroke of a pen.

DACA, which six months ago President Trump ordered be terminated by March 5, is on court-ordered life support because in January a leftist federal judge in San Francisco named William Alsup, who seems to have exceptionally poor reading comprehension, convinced himself the U.S. Constitution grants him the authority to second-guess presidential decisions related to aliens and immigration. Alsup acted even though no sane constitutional law scholar believes a president is not allowed to revoke an executive action taken by a previous president. So the Trump administration continues to process DACA paperwork because a Clinton appointee arrogated lawmaking power to himself.

White House spokesman Raj Shah said President Trump doesn’t want to see legal status for applicants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program dealt with in an omnibus spending bill, Sarah Westwood of the Washington Examiner reports. The federal government will run out of money March 23 and partially shut down if a spending deal cannot be reached.

“The White House opposes a so-called three for three deal,” Shah said.

The president’s people are also reportedly pushing lawmakers to block so-called sanctuary cities that shield illegal aliens from taking in federal funding.

Trump addressed the issue on Twitter on March 13, writing:

California’s sanctuary policies are illegal and unconstitutional and put the safety and security of our entire nation at risk. Thousands of dangerous & violent criminal aliens are released as a result of sanctuary policies, set free to prey on innocent Americans. THIS MUST STOP!

Defunding sanctuary jurisdictions is more popular among Republicans in the House than in the Senate.

“We like that policy,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

As the [spending bill] currently stands, no funding for the wall but there is funding for Planned Parenthood in it, and there is talk of putting insurance bailouts in it. And you think we are going to vote for that?

Conservative lawmakers are understandably loathe to cave on DACA protections for the 700,000 or so affected illegal aliens said to have been brought to the country as youngsters because doing so would obliterate their bargaining power in deliberations about broader immigration policy reforms. A source within the House Freedom Caucus told Westwood the bloc “would not go for” any compromise that produced border wall appropriations alone.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) doesn’t want Congress to keep kicking the immigration can down the road.

“The three for three DACA deal being floated fails to provide long-term certainty for our national security or immigrant families,” Lankford said in a press release.

“We need to pursue a permanent solution now. We should discuss the President’s framework proposal and what needs to be done to make it passable.”

Of course, DACA has always been an ignominious example of Caesarism, as well as a brazen Democrat power grab and usurpation of Congress’ constitutionally prescribed role in making laws. Before President Obama created DACA in 2012 unilaterally by decree, he acknowledged such a program would be unconstitutional. “I am not king,” Obama said in 2010, adding the next year that with “respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case.”

The political horse-trading continues in Washington as support for abolishing the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) agency appears to be growing among left-wing activists, commentators, and Democrat candidates for public office. It has yet to catch on with actual Democrat office-holders – but give it time.

This leftist temper tantrum isn’t just a rejection of ICE – it is a wholesale repudiation of borders and immigration laws, that is, of the idea of the United States as a sovereign nation. By watching the lawlessness that is increasingly coming to define California, Americans are seeing for themselves what horror and chaos await them should the Left seize the reins of government.

This seditious idea of abolishing ICE appears to be the brainchild of Democrat spin doctor Brian Fallon, who was a spokesman for the nearly-impeached attorney general, Eric Holder. “ICE operates as an unaccountable deportation force,” Fallon tweeted Jan. 21. “Dems running in 2020 should campaign on ending the agency in its current form.”

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), a former attorney general of the newly designated sanctuary state of California, was attacked from the left recently for her reluctance to abolish ICE.

“ICE has a purpose, ICE has a role, ICE should exist,” the aspiring presidential candidate said on MSNBC. “But let’s not abuse the power.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, California lawmakers made history by appointing activist Lizbeth Mateo, a twice-rejected DACA applicant, to a state board, making her the first illegal alien to hold a statewide government post in California’s history.

This Mexican national, who somehow managed to become a practicing attorney despite being a lawbreaker, will help dole out money to other illegal aliens by serving on the California Student Opportunity and Access Program Project Grant Advisory Committee (Cal-SOAP), which advises the California Student Aid Commission.

Mateo “embodies California values and the American dream,” California Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon (D) gushed. “Ms. Mateo is a courageous, determined and intelligent young woman who at great personal risk has dedicated herself to fight for those seeking their rightful place in this country,” de Leon said.

The state senator is right about one thing: Lizbeth Mateo definitely embodies California values.

This article by Matthew Vadum first appeared March 16, 2018, at FrontPageMag.