The DACA, commonly associated with the “Dream Act,” is an acronym for “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act.” It was a legislative proposal for qualifying alien minors in the United States that would first grant conditional residency and, upon meeting further qualifications, permanent residency. The bill was first introduced in the Senate on August 1, 2001 by United States Senators Dick Durbin and Orrin Hatch, and has since been reintroduced several times but has failed to pass.
On June 15, 2012, President Barack Obama announced that his administration would stop deporting illegal immigrants who match certain criteria included in the proposed Dream Act. On August 15, 2012, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting applications under the Obama administration's new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Because DACA was designed in large measure to address the immigration status of the same people as the Dream Act, the two programs are often debated together, with some making little distinction between them and others focusing on the difference between the the Dream Act's legislative approach in contrast to the implementation of DACA through Obama’s executive action.
And that's precisely what motivates Trump. Anything that has Presidents name attached to it, Trump wants to obliterate it from government and history.
Trump isn’t only alienating the Republican senators by publicly berating them.
He’s also pissing off the executives of America’s biggest corporations who happen to have a lot of influence over Republican members of Congress, because they pay the costs of their campaigns.
Trump’s unwillingness to strongly condemn the neo-Nazi’s and white supremacists in Charlottesville caused business leaders to stampede off his advisory councils.
Now his plan to end DACA, the Obama-era program that allows unauthorized immigrants who arrived in America as children to remain here, is mobilizing CEOs to make the program permanent by getting Congress to enact legislation.
A business coalition founded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is lining up corporate leaders in at least 15 states to pressure Congress in private meetings, newspaper op-eds, and public events.
At the time, a who’s-who of more than 400 executives have already signed a petition urging Trump and Congress to protect the “dreamers.” They include CEOs of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, AT&T, Wells Fargo, Best Buy, Ikea and Kaiser Permanente.
“We're also calling on Congress to finally pass the Dream Act or another permanent, legislative solution that Dreamers deserve,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post last week. “These young people represent the future of our country and our economy.”
CEOs are not moral leaders of American society. They’re taking action because Trump’s hatefulness is bad for business.
Their customers and investors reacted so badly to Charlottesville that the CEOs had to distance themselves from Trump.
And they’re smart enough to know that Dreamers are good for the American economy. They’re not taking jobs away from native-born Americans. Their purchases create more jobs.
Plus many of them are unusually driven, and their achievements are already adding to the economy. Their parents had to be ambitious in order to get into America, and they seem to have passed on to their kids a particularly strong work ethic.
Dreamers have been among my best students at Berkeley.
More than 72 percent of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies count Dreamers among their employees, according to FWD.us, which organized the petition.
On Sunday, Apple chief executive Tim Cook tweeted, “250 of my Apple coworkers are #Dreamers. I stand with them.”
Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote in a blog post that at least 27 employees — including software engineers, finance professionals, and retail associates — are Dreamers. Ending the program, he said, would be a “step backwards for our entire nation.”
Trump is becoming ever more isolated – abandoned not just by Democrats and Independents but by a growing number of Washington Republicans and CEOs.
It’s not that these Republicans and CEOs detest the hatefulness or divisiveness Trump has been fueling in America. They detest its effect on business.
I don't care how they see the light as long as they push Trump into a deeper and darker hole.
By Tracy Jan
