The controversy about the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy continues with both the proponents and critics of the program giving their reasons for either supporting or opposing it respectively. The DACA program allows immigrants who are under 30 years and arrived as children in the United States to apply for a deferral of their deportation (Blackman, 2017). However, the program is unconstitutional as this article argues since it was a unilateral decision taken by President Obama after he failed to get his way in the Congress.
The United States is considered a land of dreams and many of the illegal immigrants come here without documentation to earn a living and improve their lives. The deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a form of amnesty that encourages people to get into the country without documentation and later on granted amnesty to defer their deportation. While the executive branch of government has power to exercise constitutional powers vested in executive orders, some policy issues concerning immigration require Congressional approval (Blackman, 2017). However, in enacting the DACA policy, the executive led by President Obama failed to get the Congressional approval and the president had to use his executive order to start the implementation of this controversial policy. In his response in 2010 over demands to execute immigration reforms unilaterally, President Obama was categorical that those who came into the country as minors had the right to have the deportation deferred and be granted legal status. As such, the illegal immigrants who came into the country as children were granted the right to work and access other government social benefits without Congressional approval. The immigration statutes that were passed by the Congress did not confer such powers to the president. In fact, the Congress had rejected bills that sought to provide these benefits.
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To demonstrate how unconstitutional DACA was, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court ruled in favor of a nationwide injunction against the second part of the program that the Obama administration wanted to implement targeted at adult illegal immigrants. In 2014, the executive attempted to implement a similar program called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). The DAPA program offered administrative amnesty for the illegal immigrants that came to the United States as adults (Von Spakovsky, 2017). The program also aimed at guaranteeing them work authorization and getting social security benefits from the federal government. The Supreme Court agreed with the circuit appellate court and held that the inability of the executive to enforce the statute and remove illegal people in the country did not change what is deemed unlawful by the Congress to be lawful by the executive. Further, it cannot confer eligibility for unavailable benefits because of that change. The Constitution of the United States confers authority over immigration to the Congress. The president exercises the authority delegated to him by the Congress. As such, the Congress never approved the power to the president to offer pseudo-legal amnesty and government benefits to illegal immigrants in the country (Chumley, 2017). The DACA program suffers similar constitutional flaws like DAPA and remains unconstitutional as pronounced by both the Supreme Court and the circuit appellate court.
Conclusion
It is evident that the implementation of DACA is unconstitutional as the Congress never approved the bill and the executive decided to use Executive orders to have the policy operational. The DACA law suffers similar constitutional flaws like the DAPA program and should not be implemented as it violates the tenets of the constitution and bypasses the Congress.
References
Blackman, P. (2017) Trump’s DACA Decision Defies All Norms; Retrieved from
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/07/trumps-daca-decision-defies-all-norms/
Chumley, C.K (2017) DACA is unconstitutional and Obama’s the ‘cruel’ one; Retrieved from
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/7/daca-is-unconstitutional-and-obamas-the-cruel-one/
Von Spakovsky, H.A. (2017) DACA Is Unconstitutional, as Obama Admitted;
Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/daca-unconstitutional-obama-admitted
