National Catholic Reporter: DACA is not enough. We need comprehensive immigration reform.
Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/we-should-keep-fighting-daca-daca-not-enough
I believe certainly that these young Americans should come out of the shadows, but I also believe that those undocumented immigrants who did not qualify for the program should be permitted to come out of the shadows. The fact that these young people had been brought to this country as children made their innocence of any criminal intent obvious. But emphasizing their innocence, I feared, would make it seem like all other undocumented immigrants would be seen as criminal.
SNIP
There are many millions of Americans who are entitled to feel aggrieved: Their livelihoods have vanished and their communities have followed. They watch the rich and famous on television while members of their own families and communities struggle with depression or addiction. People who once made a good living at the shop now earn minimum wage in the service industry. Hundreds of thousands lost their homes to foreclosures while not a single Wall Street vulture went to jail.
But undocumented immigrants are not the cause of their plight, only the scapegoat for it.
No one should be surprised the president decided to end DACA, or to leave its continuation to others. He must dread the prospect of Congress actually doing anything. That would be one bill with no public signing ceremony.
When the president is in trouble — and his pitiful record to date combined with the ever-growing threat posed by investigations into his campaign's dealings with Russia make for a mountain of trouble — he stokes racial animus. It is what he does. Birds fly. Dogs bark. Trump stokes the fires of white nationalist hatred.
As a Catholic community, we must remember that DACA is important, but it is not enough. We should fight to keep it going, but we should not let its continuation lead us to ignore the still-pressing need for a comprehensive reform of our immigration laws.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but I do on this topic.
