Just when we thought the unconstitutional Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was dead thanks to a decision from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, like a zombie it rises and staggers on. The federal judiciary fears, apparently, giving it the coup de grâce it so richly deserves. It is also back on the table in Congress. And now, as expected, the Slave Power—the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Treason Lobby overseers—are pushing Congress to act. The American economy will collapse, we are told, if a DACA Amnesty isn’t codified in legislation. Time to kill it once and for all.
The history of litigation involving DACA and its ugly sister, DAPA, Deferred Action For Parents Of Americans, is complicated, but boils down to this: The Fifth Circuit has declared both programs illegal.
It killed DAPA in 2015, pursuant to the heroic Judge Andrew Hanen’s ruling for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The Fifth Circuit acted against DAPA because it violated the Administrative Procedures Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act, and usurped Congress’ power to make immigration policy by simply declaring an Amnesty. To its credit, in 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court let the Fifth Circuit’s ruling stand. The Trump Administration rescinded the creating memorandum in 2017.
Early this month, the Fifth similarly declared DACA an illegal program for the same reasons, relying on the previous DAPA jurisprudence.
BREAKING: TX wins big against lawless, open-borders Biden Admin at the 5th Circuit. The appeals court just AFFIRMED my team’s trial court win. DACA—part of Dems’ program to flood our country with aliens—is illegal & will stay enjoined. Huge victory for the Rule of Law in America! https://t.co/NmOYTfWXiY
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) October 6, 2022
When Hanen deep-sixed DACA last year, the Biden Regime made the program regulatory law and rescinded the original Obama-era memorandum that created it [DHS Issues Regulation to Preserve and Fortify DACA, DHS.gov, August 24, 2022]:
The legal move was aimed at countering the July 2021 lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Houston, who said the Obama administration had illegally implemented DACA.
[DACA remains intact as appeals court sends case challenging its legality back to lower court in Texas, by Uriel J. Garcia, Texas Tribune, October 5, 2022]
The ploy didn’t work. Led by Bush 43 appointee Priscilla Richman, the Fifth ruled that DACA violated the APA, and that Congress did not give the Department of Homeland Security the power to do what it did.
“DHS asserts that the program set forth in the DACA Memorandum is an exercise of its inherent prosecutorial discretion. The district court cogently and thoroughly analyzed this argument and rejected it,” the ruling says. “We agree with the district court. As our court held in DAPA “‘[a]lthough prosecutorial discretion is broad, it is not ‘unfettered.’”
The Fifth Circuit then cited the DAPA ruling:
The Government cites provisions that authorize the Secretary to “[e]stablish national immigration enforcement policies and priorities” and to carry out the administration and enforcement of immigration laws, including to “establish such regulations,” “issue such instructions,” and “perform such other acts as he deems necessary for carrying out his authority.” Writing about these same provisions in DAPA, we said that these “broad grants of authority … cannot reasonably be construed as assigning ‘decisions of vast economic and political significance’ … to an agency.”
The defendants’ attempts to distinguish DACA and DAPA are unavailing. …
Like DAPA, DACA is “foreclosed by Congress’s careful plan; the program is ‘manifestly contrary to the statute.’” DACA violates the substantive requirements of the APA.
Yet instead of simply killing DACA, the Fifth punted. It ruled that Hanen’s lower court must revisit the Biden’s attempt to impose DACA by regulatory fiat.
In remanding the matter back to the lower court, the Fifth wrote that “we also recognize that DACA has had profound significance to recipients and many others in the ten years since its adoption.”
Of course, instead of worrying about feelings, the court should have killed DACA, which would require Congress to deal with it directly, instead of hiding behind judges and federal bureaucrats. Again, one reason the Fifth said DACA is illegal is that only Congress has the power to make immigration law.
In his revealing reaction, DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas, in begging Congress to act, all but confessed that creating DACA is not within DHS’s purview.
“In August, DHS issued a final rule to preserve and fortify DACA, recognizing that it has transformed the lives of so many Dreamers who have enriched our nation through their contributions,” Mayorkas said:
It is clear, though, that only the passage of legislation will give full protection and a well-deserved path to citizenship for DACA recipients. I urge Congress to swiftly pass legislation to provide permanent protection to the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who call the United States home.
[Statement from Secretary Mayorkas on Fifth Circuit Ruling Regarding DACA, DHS.gov, October 6, 2022]
So he tacitly admitted that DACA was illegal from the start. He should know. Mayorkas conceived the program.
On October 14, Hanen enjoined DACA, but said it can remain in place while Biden’s DHS prepares its case to support its regulatory rule, which goes into effect next month. DACA hopefuls can continue to apply for status, but DHS cannot process the applications. Illegals already in the program can stay in it and reapply for it:
During a court hearing Friday, Hanen ordered attorneys for the federal government to provide more information on the new rule and said he expects additional legal arguments related to it, but there was no timetable set for future hearings. It’s also unclear when Hanen will give his final decision on the case, which is expected to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.
[Judge rules new DACA program can continue temporarily, by Juan Lozano, Associated Press, October 14, 2022]
Judge rules new DACA program can continue temporarily (from @AP) https://t.co/4RZ5rmiTvb
— DWatchNews N America (@dwatchnews_nam) October 14, 2022
Again, kill the infernal thing already!
Naturally Mayorkas didn’t like Hanen’s latest decision either, and again “urge[d] Congress to swiftly pass legislation to provide permanent protection to the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who call the United States home” [Statement from Secretary Mayorkas on Ruling by the Southern District of Texas on DACA, DHS.gov, October 14, 2022].
Joining Mayorkas, of course, is the Slave Power-Treason Lobby. Its reaction was most informative if unsurprising. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its front group, The Coalition For The American Dream, immediately demanded Congress pass the DACA Amnesty because if DACA recipients lose their employment authorization, the world might come to an end.
The recent ruling by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals declaring DACA illegal puts all of these individuals, their families, and their employers at risk. …
The worker shortage will get worse for the United States if hundreds of thousands of critical workers are stripped of their legal ability to support themselves and their families. That is the situation we currently face if this ruling becomes final, and it is the reason for our request today…
When the last DACA recipient’s work permit expires, the U.S. will have lost more than 500,000 jobs, and the U.S. economy will lose as much as $11.7 billion.
[Letter To Congress, The Coalition For The American Dream, October 20, 2022]
80+ top businesses and associations are standing with #Dreamers today and every day following the Fifth Circuit Court’s ruling on the #DACA policy. Read our letter to Congressional leaders calling for a bipartisan solution to protect Dreamers now: https://t.co/90ybYRbEqJ
— Coalition For the American Dream (@coalition_dream) October 20, 2022
That’s the long way of saying, “WE DEMAND CHEAP LABOR SO OUR CEOS CAN GET BIGGER BONUSES!”
The result of losing just more than 500,000 illegal-alien workers is miniscule relative to the number of full-time employees in the United States: 164 million. And that putative loss assumes that all DACA recipients are employed full-time, which is not true. As well, many are under age 18, are full-time students, are unemployed, and live on welfare. A significant number are criminals and gang members [MS-13 Resurgence: Immigration Enforcement Needed to Take Back Our Streets, by Jessica Vaughan, Center for Immigration Studies, February 21, 2018].
But the coalition’s real motive: DACA recipients drive down wages. Many employers use illegal and legal immigrants as part of their business model: They are cheap labor that can provide cheap goods and services.
Chipotle restaurant franchise is a premier example, which is one reason its participation in the coalition is so telling. It hires illegal aliens at low wages and bad working conditions to provide cheap food to office drones and suburbanites who don’t want to cook. And it certainly isn’t hiring executives, accountants, and other white-collar workers from the DACA labor pool, though it is hiring DACA recipients—mostly Spanish-speaking Mexicans—to manage the Spanish-speaking illegal aliens who create the assembly-line tacos, burritos, and other fare. When caught, Chipotle executives lobbied for Amnesty to protect its profits from raids by ICE SVU.
While Chipotle would have a hard time attracting workers at current wages, GM, IBM, Paypal, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and the other major employers that signed the letter, most of which have few DACA employees, would face no shortage of American job applicants who want and are qualified to work. All receive multiple applications for each opening. A lost DACA employee would be quickly replaced. Chipotle and employers like it, of course, will be toast without illegal aliens and legal immigrants to work in what are tantamount to air-conditioned sweatshops.
But, in the end, the Slave Power’s shameless baby-waving to sustain a business model based on cheap illegal-alien labor does not concern most Americans. Another benefit of ditching DACA: Given the right incentive, such as reduced welfare, unemployed blacks and others can be drawn back into the jobs that illegal aliens take because they work for less money.
As for the Fifth Circuit, it’s right. DACA and DAPA are illegal. The Biden Regime’s attempt to give Amnesty to illegal aliens, by elevating a 10-year-old memorandum into a regulatory law, was a blatant attempt to push along The Great Replacement that will destroy the Historic American Nation.
The case against DACA will likely land in the U.S. Supreme Court. Let’s hope the conservative majority drives a stake through this zombie’s head once and for all.
The blogger Federale (Email him) is a 4th generation Californian and a veteran of federal law enforcement, including service in the legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Federale's opinions do not represent those of the Department of Homeland Security or the federal government, and are an exercise of rights protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
