Vermont politicians scramble to defend amnesty after Trump ends DACA

President Donald Trump on Tuesday fulfilled a campaign pledge to end DACA’s amnesty for illegal immigrants, but politicians in Vermont rushed to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

While Vermont leaders blasted the development, Trump says rescinding DACA is an opportunity to get immigration reform done legally.

“I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws. The legislative branch, not the executive branch, writes these laws,” the president said in a statement.

“We are facing the symptom of a larger problem, illegal immigration, along with the many other chronic immigration problems Washington has left unsolved,” he added.

Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican and staunch critic of the president, sided with Vermont’s most ardent left-wing politicians on the issue.

“It’s unfortunate the President has chosen to end the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which now leaves it in the hands of Congress for legislative action. The young people who will be affected have known no other home than the U.S., and DACA has given many of them important academic opportunities that further their ability to contribute to our communities, and our nation,” Scott said in a statement.

Those currently benefiting from DACA can continue to do so for a limited time, in some cases until 2019. There will also be a six-month window for Congress to revisit the program, which started as an executive order signed by President Barack Obama in 2012.

RELATED: Ryan says Trump DACA move fulfilling promise to restore roles of government branches

DACA’s aim, which is to give temporary amnesty to illegal immigrants who arrive to the country as minors, applies to about 800,000 illegals. To be included in DACA, an immigrant must be between the ages of 15 and 31 as of June 15, 2012. The current average age of DACA immigrants is 25 years old.

Kris Kobach, the secretary of state for Kansas and a top immigration adviser to the president, said the move has been a long time coming.

“DACA violates the U.S. Constitution in two different ways, and it also violates three different federal statutes,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “It’s not just my opinion — you have had lower federal courts already say that. It’s illegal and it should end now.”

He said the U.S. job market could immediately benefit by ending the amnesty program.

“It’s a really tough job market right now for U.S. citizens out there. [For] young people who are coming out of high school right now, unemployment is 17 percent. Underemployment, where they are working part time when they would like to be working full time, is 31 percent, and for college graduates underemployment is 12 percent. … Why would you want to bring in 1.7 million young illegal aliens to compete against them?” Kobach said.

Trump’s move may also make the nation safer. Data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says that more than 2,000 DACA immigrants had their status revoked due to criminal activity, including 622 just this year.

“The deferred action terminations were due to one or more of the following: a felony criminal conviction; a significant misdemeanor conviction; multiple misdemeanor convictions; gang affiliation; or arrest of any crime in which there is deemed to be a public safety concern,” the Washington Examiner reported.

Nevertheless, Vermont’s top Democrats rushed to defend amnesty and take political shots at Trump.

“Trump’s decision on DACA is the ugliest and most cruel decision ever made by a president of the U.S. in the modern history of this country,” tweeted U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch got in on the digs at Trump.

“This is the height of cruelty, to threaten good, law-abiding Americans where they’ve served in this country, in the military, on the Houston Fire Department and in Vermont,” he said. “We have 800,000 individuals who are DACA-identified, and they’re just like you and me.”

Attorney General TJ Donovan agreed.

“Under the DACA program, they were promised they could stay in this country to work, study, and be productive members of our communities,” he wrote in a statement. “Our country has an obligation to honor this promise. By giving DREAMers a chance to live legally in the country they call home, we fulfill the promise of America — the opportunity for a better life for all who come to this country.”

The issue now rests with Congress, which has six months to craft legislation to grant amnesty to DACA immigrants.

Kobach said it’s not likely Congress will make DACA the law of the land.

“Well, the Dream Act amnesty, which is why these people are called ‘dreamers,’ has been in front of Congress more than two dozen times since 2001 and it has failed each time. I think given that track record it is likely to fail again.”

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North Reports. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorth82X.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Rhododendrites

12 thoughts on “Vermont politicians scramble to defend amnesty after Trump ends DACA

  1. The liberals and left have been setting the message for years and republicans and many conservatives don’t know how to counter it. It’s simple ignore whatever they say, don’t repeat it and state the issue in your own terms. In this case ask them to define children, because in most cases were not speaking about people less the 12.
    And then ask them to define who they don’t want protected – MS 13 member, other gangbangers, criminals, people on welfare, people getting government assistance when Americans cant get that assistance. Put them on the spot.
    And of course ask them why when they controlled the House, Senate and White House they didn’t do DACA? They passed the failure of obama care? But they didn’t want to, they knew it was a bad idea.
    In reality there is no issue here – obama created an illegal Executive Order violated his oath of office as he did throughout his tenure. His DACA like amnesty for adults was struck down by the courts as this one will be.
    President Trump could have kept his mouth shut on this issue and let the two court cases play out. But he did the responsible thing and put the issue in the lap of congress.
    And simply, all he had to do is say I swore and oath to defend the Constitution and the laws of the land unlike my predecessor – end of story.

  2. DJ Trump has his work cut out for him if Executive Order reform is his game. There’s a lot of damaging previous XOs that need undoing.

    Congress might begin some beneficial change with repeal of 13th Amendment… I must be Dreaming.

  3. Mexicans are 450,000 of the 800,000 of the Dreamers. Their parents surreptitiously and illegally entered the US (often with help from Mafia run human traffickers) and brought their children (or someone else’s children) with them, also illegally.

    Illegal entry is the cause of all subsequent problems and resentments of Americans who see their jobs taken by illegals.

    Putting Americans first should be a priority of all politicians.

    Eliminate the cause, i.e., illegal entry, and all other issues remove/ameliorate themselves painlessly.

    However, businesses like the low wages that can be paid to those illegals.

    Vermont’s ski resorts, and other resorts, and farmers several thousand illegal aliens every year, with help of the Vermont Department of Labor.

    Obama, committing an illegal, overreach, executive act for illegal alien “Dreamers” (how emotional can one get), was merely pandering to the Hispanic voting block to keep it firmly anchored in the Democrat corner.

    Much to Obama’s surprise, and almost everyone else’s, including Trump’s, the pre-ordained winner Clinton lost and Trump won.

    Obama has said on many occasions, elections have consequences. Obama is absolutely correct.

    BTW, about 450,000 of the 800,000 Dreamers were born in Mexico, brought here by their illegal alien parents.

    The Mexican mafia, conniving with local law enforcement, is making big bucks in human trafficking and drug trafficking, although closing the border more and more is going to crimp their lifestyles.

    Let is hope they turn on each other within Mexico.

    Obama could not get immigration reform through Congress, so he decided to act unilaterally, and unconstitutionally, by permitting a so-called Dreamer category.

    BTW, many of his unilateral decisions have been reversed.

    Young people, who were illegally in the US, would be allowed to TEMPORARILY stay in the US and work (i.e., take several hundred thousand jobs that US citizens could and would have filled), after they applied for a work permit under Obama’s Dreamer provision. Those permits were for two years.

    Assuming those permits would be automatically renewed, upon filing for renewal, was naive after Trump was elected.

    Trump is putting Americans first, not foreigners who are here illegally.

    Sounds logical to any rational person.

    – The median age of a DACA illegal alien is 25

    – They can be up to 36 years old and still get amnesty under DACA.

    – They can claim to have come into the US before the age of 16, which may or may not be true. After all, being illegal and all, they would hardly register that fact.

    For starters, they are not children.

    • “The young people who will be affected have known no other home than the U.S….” Scott said in a statement.”

      The average age of these so-called “Dreamers” is 25-26, some a few breaths away from 40. No data re criminality.

      Shows ta go ya, party labels mean jack…, except during campaigns.

  4. DACA is just another Obama mess that our President has to clean up. As President Trump points out, we a nation of laws and time after time, Obama ignored the ones he didn’t like or tried to change them with his stupid pen and phone. As Willie the Shake used to say, “all’s well that ends well.”

  5. Again our gang of three, back in the new (TV) I guess someone need to explain (DACA) Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. What is that they don’t understand about Deferred??

    The President has given Congress (Our) Peter Welch, six months to come up with new legislation. I thought that was their job. If our elected officials really want to have comprehensive immigration reform here’s there chance. They couldn’t get it done if they had six years.

    Our buffoon (Bernie) just cannot stay off the stage, with his blow hard rhetoric then our own babbling Leahy, they are our fools that get nothing done with any substance and they keep getting voted in … we must be idiots!!

    DACA, introduced by Obama under executive order knowing a real bill (law) would never pass the House or Senate and six months won’t get it done either.

    • Obama abused the executive order privilege probably more than any other president. He knew it was illegal so put all the whiny babies on his door step. Words can’t describe the disdain I have for him and his like minded minions.

    • Scott is standing there and letting these three Democrats rant and rave about awful this and that they hardly mentioned earlier.

      Why given them a forum to do grand standing?

  6. I really have long since stopped paying attention to what Vermont politicians have to say, remembering the source. Hey! These folks are from Vermont! You know that state that voted in and keeps voting in an Alinsky Socialist from New York to be their Senator in Washington, that state that voted in an Attorney General who protects voter fraud…

  7. Obama said 22 times he lacks power to change immigration law that belongs to Congress. 6 months later he executive orders the dream act that is not in his power saying it’s only temporary.

  8. So if Obama can make an previously admitted unconstitutional braking of separation of powers law on the dreamers do Democrats give Trump the same power to do the same on another issue? That’s the can of worms that has been opened. At the whim of any President by usurping Congress’s power given them by the Constitution .

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