Should we really have DACA kids ruling over us in Congress?

Want a gander at some one-sided reporting?

Take a look at what the normally centrist Roll Call has cranked out, openly advocating for congressional positions for DACA kids, who along with other foreign nationals, are prohibited by law from assuming positions of governance in the federal government. Legal foreigners in Congress are required by law to be taking steps, at least, toward U.S. citizenship. DACA kids, who are here illegally, but have the special privileges of DACA other illegal immigrants don’t have, are not.

“I would call that a WTF moment,” he said. “It’s mean-spirited. DACA recipients have overcome challenges. They have grit and tenacity and the skill sets needed to work on Capitol Hill. It’s not only a detriment to these folks who have public service careers closed off to them, it’s a detriment to the country.”

Ah, service! We should be slavering for their ‘public service’ or else. Roll Call pours on the glurge, effectively telling us that we all owe it to DACA recipients to allow them to work in Congress, changing the ‘mean-spirited’ law, and all based on their campaign work to elect Democrats. Here’s the actual rationale given by Roll Call for changing the law to allow DACA kids to lord it over us — or as the writer puts it, ’serve’ — in Congress:

Perez had spent months knocking on doors and speaking to voters across south Phoenix and Mesa. She had deep roots in the 9th District, where she’d lived since she was 4 years old.

She was knowledgeable about policy and had a track record of success working behind the scenes for the Phoenix City Council — from the installation of a new dog park to an ordinance requiring equal pay for women in the city.

No word on whether she’s trying to become a citizen legally, the way legal immigrants do, applying for a green card from her home country. Roll Call, of course, didn’t ask. 

It just reported that because she campaigned to elect a Democrat, a U.S. law should now be changed to allow her to be the arms and legs of the congressional office, accomodating her every wish as her political spoil. Wow.

Not one word about why the law might be a good idea from the other side. Reporting is supposed to be about giving two sides, maybe even a nod to two sides. No effort at all was exerted to find out anything about why that “mean-spirited” law might have been put in place to keep foreigners out of the reach of U.S. sovereign power.

Career congressional staff are invisible, yet very powerful, people, often more powerful than the congresspeople they purport to represent. They often have their own interests and agendas. And, as Roll Call explained in its syrupy lobbying piece to give this DACA kid political power over us, the DACA recipient had lots of experience in governing U.S. citizens with that dog park and equal pay for women in the city of Phoenix. Every political decision involves choosing one set of interests over another. For a foreigner to be doing it in the supposedly free United States, ruling against some U.S. citizen in whatever her decisions were, is rather intolerable. 

What’s more, that foreign citizenship ought to exclude every foreigner from security clearances and secret briefings, given the pressure such foreign nationals could be under from their countries of citizenship. Consider also that many DACA kids are unassimilated immigrants who haven’t even learned English. English, as it turns out, is not even a requirement for DACA qualification. Should those people, hired by some congressional Democrat, be making decisions for us? The DACA cutoff age is 16, so plenty of such recipients not only haven’t bothered to master English (you can tell this by the foreign language press releases from DACA kids giving testimony by activist groups), they are also very much loyal to their home countries and view a U.S. residency as a pass for bennies, or in some cases, political power. Many openly wave the Mexican flag in their calls for amnesty. More important, foreign nationals of some countries are uniquely susceptible to pressure from their countries of citizenship to advance that foreign country’s interests. You can bet that a Chinese national under protection from the DACA program would be hearing from the Chinese government about duties to the motherland – and maybe a few threats about what would happen to his relatives if he didn’t play ball. I’ve seen the Mexican goverment apply pressure to its nationals, too, in Los Angeles.

 That reality is no match for the gimme-gimme-gimme attitude of some politically active DACA recipients, who shouldn’t even be allowed to campaign here as non-citizens. (It’s a jailtime offense in Mexico for a foreign national to be campaigning in their elections over there.) But don’t count on the press to report it. I suspect Roll Call is just the tip of the iceberg on this one-sided reporting and already the New York Times is making calls to try to outdo Roll Call with the sob stories in coming days.

Image credit: Michael L. Dorn, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

 

 

Want a gander at some one-sided reporting?

Take a look at what the normally centrist Roll Call has cranked out, openly advocating for congressional positions for DACA kids, who along with other foreign nationals, are prohibited by law from assuming positions of governance in the federal government. Legal foreigners in Congress are required by law to be taking steps, at least, toward U.S. citizenship. DACA kids, who are here illegally, but have the special privileges of DACA other illegal immigrants don’t have, are not.

“I would call that a WTF moment,” he said. “It’s mean-spirited. DACA recipients have overcome challenges. They have grit and tenacity and the skill sets needed to work on Capitol Hill. It’s not only a detriment to these folks who have public service careers closed off to them, it’s a detriment to the country.”

Ah, service! We should be slavering for their ‘public service’ or else. Roll Call pours on the glurge, effectively telling us that we all owe it to DACA recipients to allow them to work in Congress, changing the ‘mean-spirited’ law, and all based on their campaign work to elect Democrats. Here’s the actual rationale given by Roll Call for changing the law to allow DACA kids to lord it over us — or as the writer puts it, ’serve’ — in Congress:

Perez had spent months knocking on doors and speaking to voters across south Phoenix and Mesa. She had deep roots in the 9th District, where she’d lived since she was 4 years old.

She was knowledgeable about policy and had a track record of success working behind the scenes for the Phoenix City Council — from the installation of a new dog park to an ordinance requiring equal pay for women in the city.

No word on whether she’s trying to become a citizen legally, the way legal immigrants do, applying for a green card from her home country. Roll Call, of course, didn’t ask. 

It just reported that because she campaigned to elect a Democrat, a U.S. law should now be changed to allow her to be the arms and legs of the congressional office, accomodating her every wish as her political spoil. Wow.

Not one word about why the law might be a good idea from the other side. Reporting is supposed to be about giving two sides, maybe even a nod to two sides. No effort at all was exerted to find out anything about why that “mean-spirited” law might have been put in place to keep foreigners out of the reach of U.S. sovereign power.

Career congressional staff are invisible, yet very powerful, people, often more powerful than the congresspeople they purport to represent. They often have their own interests and agendas. And, as Roll Call explained in its syrupy lobbying piece to give this DACA kid political power over us, the DACA recipient had lots of experience in governing U.S. citizens with that dog park and equal pay for women in the city of Phoenix. Every political decision involves choosing one set of interests over another. For a foreigner to be doing it in the supposedly free United States, ruling against some U.S. citizen in whatever her decisions were, is rather intolerable. 

What’s more, that foreign citizenship ought to exclude every foreigner from security clearances and secret briefings, given the pressure such foreign nationals could be under from their countries of citizenship. Consider also that many DACA kids are unassimilated immigrants who haven’t even learned English. English, as it turns out, is not even a requirement for DACA qualification. Should those people, hired by some congressional Democrat, be making decisions for us? The DACA cutoff age is 16, so plenty of such recipients not only haven’t bothered to master English (you can tell this by the foreign language press releases from DACA kids giving testimony by activist groups), they are also very much loyal to their home countries and view a U.S. residency as a pass for bennies, or in some cases, political power. Many openly wave the Mexican flag in their calls for amnesty. More important, foreign nationals of some countries are uniquely susceptible to pressure from their countries of citizenship to advance that foreign country’s interests. You can bet that a Chinese national under protection from the DACA program would be hearing from the Chinese government about duties to the motherland – and maybe a few threats about what would happen to his relatives if he didn’t play ball. I’ve seen the Mexican goverment apply pressure to its nationals, too, in Los Angeles.

 That reality is no match for the gimme-gimme-gimme attitude of some politically active DACA recipients, who shouldn’t even be allowed to campaign here as non-citizens. (It’s a jailtime offense in Mexico for a foreign national to be campaigning in their elections over there.) But don’t count on the press to report it. I suspect Roll Call is just the tip of the iceberg on this one-sided reporting and already the New York Times is making calls to try to outdo Roll Call with the sob stories in coming days.

Image credit: Michael L. Dorn, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0