Trump's support for law to protect 'Dreamers' lifts its chances

An unexpected meeting of the minds between President Trump and Democratic leaders on Thursday made real a possible deal in Congress to pair enhanced border security with legislation to protect young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.

One day after Mr. Trump hosted Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi for dinner at the White House, the president said he could support legislation to protect the young immigrants known as “Dreamers” from deportation if it were accompanied by a “massive” border security upgrade. Acceding to a key Democratic demand, Mr. Trump said such a package did not need to have funding for a border wall.

It was the second time this month that a tentative agreement announced by Democrats left Republican leaders in Congress scrambling to adjust a legislative agenda that appears increasingly set by the party out of power in the House, the Senate and the White House.

“We’re working on a plan for DACA,” Mr. Trump told reporters, referring to protections for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as he prepared to leave the White House for Florida. He added, “The wall will come later.”
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'It's outrageous, it's not right': 15 states, DC sue Trump admin over DACA

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia sued the US government to block President Donald Trump's plan to end protection against deportation for young immigrants who New York's attorney general labeled the "best of America."

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday asked a judge to strike down as unconstitutional the president's action involving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

It called the move "a culmination of President Trump's oft-stated commitments ... To punish and disparage people with Mexican roots."

Also Read:  Trump ends DACA: All you need to know about it and how Indians are impacted

The attorneys general who brought the lawsuit all Democrats represent states where the population of DACA participants known as "dreamers" ranges from hundreds to tens of thousands. They were brought to the US illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas.

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The very bad economics of killing DACA

Trump’s decision to kill DACA — never mind the attempt to obscure things with that meaningless delay — is, first and foremost, a moral obscenity: throwing out 800,000 young people who are Americans in every way that matters, who have done nothing wrong, basically for racial reasons. But it’s also worth noting that Jeff Sessions just tried to sell it with junk economics, claiming that the Dreamers are taking American jobs. No, they aren’t, even if we leave aside the question of who’s an American. DACA is very much a boon to the rest of the U.S. population, and killing it will make everyone worse off.

To see why, first note that whatever you think about the economics of less-educated immigrants — most of the evidence suggests that they don’t depress wages, but that’s another discussion — none of it applies to DREAMers. Their educational and behavioral profile, as Cato notes, doesn’t resemble the average immigrant, let alone the average undocumented immigrant; they look like H-1B visa holders, that is, skilled immigrants we have specifically allowed in because they help the economy.

Beyond that, DREAMers are young — which means that they help the economy in not one but two big ways, because they mitigate the economic problems caused by an aging population.

One of those problems is fiscal: as the population ages, there are fewer working-age members contributing taxes to pay for Social Security and Medicare. A cohort of relatively high-wage, highly motivated people mostly in their 20s, likely to pay lots of taxes for decades, is exactly what the doctor ordered to make that issue less severe.
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