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Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients are saying no thanks to Donald Trump’s “deal” offering only some of them temporary protections in exchange for Stephen Miller’s white supremacist immigration wish list. "With me as a Dreamer,” said Arizonan Antonio Valdovinos De La Mora, “I couldn’t support a temporary deal.”
Trump is holding the government hostage for a “deal” that benefits only him and his racist pals, demanding billions for his useless wall, gutting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and asylum, increasing detention beds, and hiring thousands more mass deportation agents in exchange for temporary protections with new standards that could shut out some current DACA beneficiaries. That’s some shit icing on top of the shit cake.
But the ploy may not work. The Trump administration was hoping to use the urgency around DACA recipients as a bargaining chip, but the Supreme Court burst that bubble on Tuesday, declining to hear the DACA case this term. So, at least through the end of the year, DACA recipients should be able to continue renewing their two-year protections—and they’re calling on Democrats to stand firm on opposing his hostage demands.
"We can’t believe anything this president says," said Karina Ruiz of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition. "We want Democrats to hold the line that is not going to spend money on a useless wall that is not going to solve any of the immigration issues that we have." And as Joan McCarter noted earlier, this proposal is “so larded down with white supremacist, anti-immigration fine print, it couldn't tempt any Democrat, even (West Virginia) Sen. Joe Manchin.”
Donald Trump had no mandate following his popular vote loss, and he certainly doesn’t have a case for one now following the GOP’s historic loss in the House. We voted to keep families together, not tear them up and kick them out. “The ‘deal’ he announced today would mean more kids in cages, more deportations and more misery,” said Greisa Martinez of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the U.S. “No way.”