Former President Barack Obama’s program protecting undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children was the right thing to do except in the way it was done: by executive order, instead of by legislation. That was more Congress’ fault than Obama’s, but the fact remains that this urgent protection for young people who are here and Americanized was never as complete or stable as it should have been.
A judge’s recent order declaring Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to be unconstitutional may turn out to be a blessing in disguise — the lever needed to get Congress, at last, to provide a permanent path to citizenship for this blameless population. Even in today’s hyperpolarized political environment, it’s a rational and popular enough idea to potentially garner wide bipartisan support.
The deferred-action program was Obama’s temporary solution to one of the most complex immigration issues out there: how to deal with hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children by their parents, raised in American communities and now living productive lives as students, employees or even soldiers in the U.S. military. Even immigration hawks have tended to understand that deporting these young people to countries they often don’t even remember and whose language they might not speak would be unfair to the point of cruelty.
