Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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In the Jan. 17 letter “Principles should not bend”, the writer, who frequently supports President Donald Trump and the Republican Party in his writings, engaged in a blatant espousal of “fake news” by stating that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is unconstitutional. He also wrote that it is principled, as opposed to mean-spirited, for Trump and Republicans to hold DACA children’s rights hostage to secure the president’s unstudied, excessively expensive and ineffective border wall program.
First, the DACA program has never been declared unconstitutional. Instead, when the Trump administration in September 2017 announced termination of it, numerous lawsuits were filed in various U.S. District Courts, one of which resulted in striking down the termination and the others staying or enjoining the termination. On Nov. 18, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lawfulness of a preliminary injunction staying the termination, and held that those contesting the termination were likely to prevail and that the DACA termination was “arbitrary and capricious.”
Is it principled to use DACA children as pawns just like Trump and the Republicans are using the close of government (and the resulting harm to federal workers) to satisfy Trump and his dwindling base of supporters? I think not, and any principled person should agree.
