Even Obamas lawyer has said that DACA would not stand up in court. 9 states were going to take the DACA ruling to court, if 1 state won the whole DACA would be made illegal and all 800,000 people would lose all cover and not be able to work. The only body that can pass a bill effecting so many people is congress. These people have to renew DACA every 2 years, the D in DACA is for DEFERRED, its a bullshit law that just keeps the wolves from the door. No one is being deported and no one is being banned from working, congress will pass a proper law within 6 months or get an extension. DACA applicants can get a 2 year extension upto October. People are reacting like these DACA people are being shipped out. Why are people not slagging off the parents for breaking multiple laws over many years
DACA went to the Supreme Court. They deadlocked at 4-4 as to whether it was unconstitutional. Now that Trump has changed the composition of the court by adding an additional conservative member, I think that DACA would be overturned. However, had Clinton won and put a liberal justice on the court then DACA would have been upheld. So I would say DACA is neither clearly unconstitutional nor clearly constitutional.
If as you say, DACA is unconstitutional, then Congress cannot "get an extension." How would that work? Trump can't give Congress an extension to do something he has no authority over in the first place.
Also, if DACA is unconstitutional because the President cannot unilaterally make policy on immigration, then how is Trump's travel ban constitutional?
The topic of whether EO's on immigration are constitutional is an interesting topic for US Constitutional legal scholars, I suppose. But it has absolutely nothing to do with any of what is happening.
Allowing DACA recipients to gain citizenship is supported by the majority of the country. And even by a slight majority of conservatives. But it leaves conservatives in a pickle because moderates favor a path to citizenship but the far right doesn't. They need a way to take a stand without offending either party. The way to do that is by dodging the substantive moral issue, and focusing on Presidential overreach. If you don't support the bill because it is unconstitutional, then you don't have to talk about the merits.
The GOP in Congress has been playing this game for ages. The Attorney Generals who are from conservative states however, don't care about the GOP in Congress. Their constituents are the far right. They just want to get immigrants out of the country and don't particularly care much how it's done.
This put Trump in a difficult place. Because his base consists of those some far right assholes. But his base is still a minority. Trump won by convincing the moderate "Party over Country" and rabidly anti-Clinton conservatives to go along with the far right. So Trump punted. He was like "Hey yeah... you know what? This might not be constitutional. So I will revoke it. Congress should come up with the answer!"
While there is a certain delicious justice in seeing the tables turned so neatly on Congress, it doesn't really excuse Trump for cowardly failing to address the issue. This happened with healthcare as well. Rather than get things done, Trump is just going to fob everything off on Congress. He has given them the impossible task of dealing with DACA, healthcare reform, the wall, tax reform, an infrastructure plan, disaster relief, raising the debt ceiling, gutting government agencies, and the Russia Investigation. Many of these things alone would take nearly a full session of Congress. Obamacare took like a year, the last successful tax reform was in 1985.
I suppose in some ways, I am quite happy to see Trump cock it up so badly. It means most of his stupid policy doesn't get passed. But it also means Trump was as hilariously incompetent as we thought. And he still got elected. And he still has support. So it doesn't address the root problem of US voters are idiots. And until that is fixed, we'll just keep electing assholes.
