Quote:
Originally Posted by miami_fan
DACA has been around since 2012, what are they waiting for?
|
Because Obama tried to do the Executive Power thingy and got GOP riled up. And DACA was a stopgap, it allowed the undocumented kids to stay & work, but no path to citizenship, not big enough to get the 11%.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals - Wikipedia
Quote:
Republican Party leaders denounced the DACA program as an abuse of executive power.[53]
Nearly all Republicans in the House of Representatives (along with three Democrats) voted 224–201 to defund DACA in June 2013.[54] Lead author of the amendment Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) stated, "The point here is ... the President does not have the authority to waive immigration law, nor does he have the authority to create it out of thin air, and he's done both with these Morton memos in this respect."[55]
|
The real prize is the DREAM Act (or a derivation). This does provide the path to citizenship and has been around longer than stopgap DACA.
So, your question really should be how come the DREAM Act hasn't passed?
My theory is the DREAM Act by itself isn't big enough for the theoretical 11% to get what they want. For example, it doesn't address the bigger picture of "border security". So why should GOP vote for it?
Instead, it needs to be packaged in with the more comprehensive immigration reform bill (e.g. Dignity Act). There's where there's enough chips on the table where people want to play.