The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is unconstitutional and violates three different federal statutes and it should be abolished without waiting another six months, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who heads President Donald Trump's Commission on Election Integrity, said Tuesday.
"It's not just my opinion," Kobach told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "You had lower federal courts already say that it is illegal and should end now. We shouldn't say we recognize it is illegal and we recognize it is violating our Constitution, but keep violating the Constitution for six months or however long. We need to end it."
The county needs to look after U.S. citizens first, he continued, including in the job market.
"It is a tough job market right now for U.S. citizens out there," said Kobach. "Unemployment is 17 percent; underemployment is 31 percent. For college graduates, it's 12 percent unemployment. It's a tough job market."
DACA, which former President Barack Obama enacted through an executive memorandum, allows certain people who came to the United States as children to request deferred action for up to two years, and allows them to be eligible for work permits.
"Let's remember, one of the things that the open borders always says they're just children," said Kobach. "No, the average age, median age is 25. They could be 36 years old to get amnesty. They claim to come in before the age of 16. They're not children."
Further, if lawmakers are worried about illegal immigrants being separated from their children, then the parents should be deported along with the "DACA recipient alien," said Kobach. "There is nothing wrong with asking people to go home."
If "dreamers" have violated the law for 10 years or more, Kobach said, "congratulations you got a huge benefit from the American taxpayer."
They "got the best education in the Western Hemisphere," he told Fox News. "If you want to go home, come in line and come in legally with hundreds of thousands of fellow countrymen doing it the right way."
Trump's expected announcement on DACA will offer a six-month period to allow Congress to enact legislation on the matter, but Kobach said he doesn't think that will happen.
"Dream Act amnesty, why these people are called dreamers, has been in front of Congress two dozen times since 2001," said Kobach. "It failed each time. Given that track record, it is likely to fail again. I hope it fails again because the last thing you want to do is create an amnesty, give work permits to 1.7 million people who will be competing against the most vulnerable of our U.S. citizens in the job market."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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