Lili Petersen, Sept 5, 2017
"Former President Barack Obama is finally speaking out on President Donald Trump's decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and he's not holding back. Obama's statement on DACA, shared via Facebook on the afternoon of Sept. 5, called Trump out for rescinding the policy. Obama called the action a “moral question” and, more straightforwardly, “wrong.”
The statement began by acknowledging that immigration is a difficult, fraught subject, and that good people can differ vastly on how best to fix the system. “But that's not what the action that the White House took today is about,” Obama wrote.
He also acknowledged the about 800,000 “Dreamers” who would be affected by the decision.”Some 800,000 young people stepped forward, met rigorous requirements, and went through background checks,” he wrote. “And America grew stronger as a result.”
On Tuesday, Sept. 5, the Trump administration announced that it would be ending DACA, an Obama-era executive order which protected undocumented immigrants who had come as children to the United States from deportation. The program, which Trump called an “amnesty-first approach” per The New York Times, will be phased out after a delay of six months, beginning March 5 2018. The administration urged Congress to use the time to come up with legislation to replace DACA.
DACA, which began accepting applicants in August of 2012, was criticized as an overstep of presidential authority by some who thought immigration reform should have passed through Congress. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who offered the public announcement regarding the ending of DACA, called it a “circumvention” of immigration laws and said on Tuesday that “the executive branch through DACA deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions.”
In his statement, Obama pushed back against that idea. He wrote about how Congress had attempted for years to write legislation to create a path for young undocumented people, particularly those who had served in the military and contributed to American society, to stay and earn citizenship. He said,
But most importantly, Obama appealed on behalf of those who would be most affected — the Dreamers themselves. His statement offered a clear and ringing condemnation not only of the move to repeal DACA, but the rationale behind the desire to make life a little more dangerous and a little more uncertain for hundreds of thousands of young people.
Obama also expressed his hope that this time, at least, Congress would act, saying that it was up to legislators to protect Dreamers. “I join my voice with the majority of Americans who hope they step up and do it with a sense of moral urgency that matches the urgency these young people feel,” he wrote: With the teamwork capability of this Congress, that may be a tall order. But we can hope."
If I could paint a picture (which I can't) my vision of 800,000 faces, tense with stress, would appear, right here. And guess what we'd see rising up in the middle of this human crush of fear?
We'd see The Lady in the harbor holding her smoking torch ever so high in hopes of being sighted by our legislators' mind's eye. And as waves of fear convey SOS distress signals directly toward D.C.,, the voters of our great nation would appear to encircle those who comprise the original circle of distress, making a heartfelt shield fashioned of compassionate, strong spirited support, imploring leadership (elected to represent the majority of their constituents) to rise to the occasion and provide for the safety of this innocent throng of good souls by casting differences aside in favor of embracing an attitude of brainstorming toward the construction and enactment of a clear cut law, thus taking redemptive action by re-igniting Ms. Liberty's torch before the passage of six months time ....
Tick tock ...
PS. Just as there's more than one way to skin a fat cat
There's more than one way to paint a picture
And my way is by painting a picture with words
(Guess which song Sinatra would choose to sing if
His spirit swooped down to hold my hand and croon
A tune before the curtain comes down on today's post?)
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