A New Year impasse on immigration legislation is in the offing. The president and his supporters want a wall on the Southern border. Democrats, radicals and moderates, want open borders starting with full American benefits for children — many in their twenties and in their thirties — who entered the nation illegally. The "children" may have entered with a parent/relative or unaccompanied.
These "children" are known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) a name the Obama administration formulated to evoke sympathy. The Democrats are using DACA as a main bargaining chip to extort concessions from President Trump including budget concessions.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (1965 INA) created a class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" and a class of visas known as Diversity Visas. Foreign nationals enroll in the Diversity Visas lottery aka Green Card lottery which awards resident visas and work authorizations to the 50,000 winners each year.
Diversity Visas are meant to provide greater migration from Third World countries. This lottery was the product of a Democratically-controlled Congress and a Democratic president. The Democratic leaders wanted to negate the American "white" vote with a reduction in European immigration quotas.
The 1965 INA included the concept of "family unification." This legislation also superseded the assimilation mores, economic norms, education requirements, national security concerns, and social welfare benefit restrictions, of past immigration legislation.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was the Democratic leader for the 1965 INA. Kennedy assured Congress and the nation that, " . . . our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually — Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset."
What actually occurred, as one American historian joked, the 1965 INA was "The brothers and sisters act," meaning a chain migration was the intended result of the Act.
Later, the Diversity Visa was made permanent by the Immigration Act of 1990, due in large part by then Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Diversity Visas have resulted in "chain migrations" and was the basis the Obama administration used to concoct the DACA policy for illegal immigrant children. Many such "children" gave incorrect ages, names, and home countries to obtain entry into the U.S., while the Obama administration ignored these errors.
The number of undocumented foreign nationals residing in the U.S. is unknown. The oft-cited number of 11 million undocumented foreign nationals currently residing in the U.S. remains a low-ball estimate. For a decade now, the federal government and immigrant advocates have used this same number. Obviously, this 11 million number is actually increasing each year with just the DACA influx alone.
The number of DACA beneficiaries varies between 690,000 and 800,000. No one has an exact number. The Center for Immigration Studies reports — from 1994 to 2016 — 1,102,373 Diversity Visas were awarded and by chain migration 3,803,187 additional "relatives" entered America. Many observers believe this estimate is a low figure.
On June 15, 2012, then Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) Jeh Johnson stated that he was using prosecutorial discretion to defer removal proceedings against illegal aliens of a certain age-DACA people.
Johnson signed a six page memorandum for his first line appointees dated Nov. 20, 2014. This memorandum became the "Operating Instructions" (OI) for all DHS employees, as it constituted a command to not enforce U.S. immigration laws.
This hogtied the Border Patrol’s efforts of law enforcement and border security.
The Obama administration did not vet nor make any credible effort to vet the DACA beneficiaries. The Obama administration downplayed terrorist prosecutions involving foreign-born U.S. residents.
As of August 2017, more than 2,100 DACA beneficiaries had their eligibility cancelled by the Trump administration due to criminal convictions — and criminal gang membership .
National security should be a major concern when considering any DACA legislation.
DACA and Diversity Visa advocates avoid any discussion of national security concerns involving DACA beneficiaries and Diversity Visa recipients. Sayfullo Saipov, the recent New York City terror attacker who killed eight people, wounding 12 others, was from Uzbekistan. He entered the country as a result of the Diversity Visa lottery.
The DACA beneficiaries and Diversity Visa winners will impact the 2020 census. Additionally, other illegal aliens have skewered population local and state population numbers that will impact the 2020 census, if counted. The 2020 census will be a matter of serious Congressional debate — whether to include DACA beneficiaries and other illegal aliens in the official census count. A decision by Congress must be made at by April 1, 2018.
Most Americans don't have the time for considering all the fine points of the immigration chaos racking the nation. U.S. citizens look to their elected representatives to do the right thing.
But, will members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives put country before party when determining what to do with the DACA beneficiaries?
James H. Walsh was associate general counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1983 to 1994. Read more reports from James Walsh — Click Here Now.
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