Torching the Rulebook

I'm starting to think Donald Trump really could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and get away with it entirely.  Not only would he not lose any voters, he'd escape any legal consequences as well.

Once I sat down and listed them all, the number of crimes and ethical transgressions he's survived unscathed is staggering.  Professionally, he screwed over American farmers with his trade war, disregarded co-equal branches of government and the concept of separation of powers, tapped his unqualified, un-appointed kids to perform government duties they have no business doing, shared highly-classified intelligence with Russian government officials (Note: as president, he has declassification authority and can legally share whatever he wants with whoever he wants; that doesn't make it a good idea, though), sparked a crisis with Iran, praised multiple dictators and authoritarian-leaning leaders, ignored the Saudi government's murder of an American journalist, obstructed justice by interfering with the Mueller probe, sanctioned the abuse & mistreatment of children, and attacked the free press. 

In his personal life - before and outside of the presidency - he's the subject of double-digit credible accusations of rape and sexual assault (including raping a teenager), accepted assistance from the Russian government during his campaign, raided the government coffers for his golf junkets, and has a track record of racism and sexism.

And those are just the scandals I could remember off the top of my head.  So where are the people and institutions that are supposed to hold him accountable? Well. . .

On one side of the aisle, the GOP is largely enabling him (and has been from the first day of his presidency). Republicans in Congress are reinforcing Trump's lies by repeating them in the media, creating lies of their own, undermining and attempting to derail legitimate investigations into Trump's crimes, shielding Trump and his appointees from oversight and repercussions, blocking attempts to exercise Congressional oversight.  And why? What does the GOP get out of this? The answer is conservative judges in lifetime appointments and continued support from its base.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are well-meaning but timid and ineffective. Based on my observation, they seem to be giving up too easy ("Oh shucks, the Trump administration ignored our subpoena.  Well, we tried.") or refuse to play hardball.  I get they impression they expect this whole mess to work itself out without their influence - that this will all blow over and things will return to normal.  And maybe it will.  I've never made a secret of how much I despise Trump, so maybe my resentment is clouding my judgment. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing about Trump refusing to leave the White House in 2021 or 2025. 

Then again, he's checking off a lot of boxes on the "making yourself a king" list: showing disdain for the separation of powers, grooming his kids as a potential successor, hinting at a possible 3rd term or rejecting an election's outcome if it's unfavorable. (Yes, he might have been joking, but it's telling that he keeps going back to that theme and a lot of humor is spoken in jest.) In just two and a half years, he's made Americans more accepting of undemocratic practices.  His base (somewhere around 35% of the country) supports whatever he does, and the rest are becoming numb to his antics. (Think I'm exaggerating? Less than two weeks ago, a woman came forward with a credible accusation that Trump raped her a few decades ago, and the story has already vanished from the headlines.  Think about that: someone accused the president of a violent crime, and it's already been forgotten.  I'm not the only one to notice this, by the way.) 

So if the public has become inured to that, what else is it downplaying? Unfounded allegations of voter fraud? Baseless criticism of law enforcement? Nepotism? Defying the Constitution and putting himself above the rule of law? Because Trump has done ALL of those things. Now, do I think we're going to wake up the day after the 2020 elections to find MRAPs and M4-toting police officers on every street corner? No. For his many faults, Trump seems adverse to bloodshed. That's what makes me believe he doesn't plan to declare martial law or anything radical like that.  But his conduct is paving the way for a more unscrupulous version of Trump down the road, someone politically savvier and less reserved about using force.  Maybe that's when we DO see the MRAPs and the rifle-carrying cops show up.

What people tolerate, they get more of, and Trump has shown that Americans will tolerate quite a lot. 

And here's another thing: whether you think Trump is an empty gasbag or an American Mussolini, his influence on government will take a long time to go away.  He's reshaped the country's political norms, and not in a good way.  He's made lying more acceptable, he's made bipartisan compromise less likely, and he's shattered future expectations of civility.

We've already seen what that looks like over the past two years - do we really want to see the "on steroids" version of that? I don't think any of us could call that a good thing. So if we want to avoid that fate, we need to fight back.  Hard. 

Even if that means breaking a few rules ourselves.  Because the Democrats need to stop "playing nice." They need to stop believing (or pretending) the GOP is acting in good faith. They need to get a bit more ruthless themselves, inflicting a few metaphorical broken bones and shattered reputations if necessary.  Steamroll over the GOP. If you wonder why I'm focusing on the Democrats instead of the Republicans, it's because the GOP's enabling of Trump has shown it's unfit to govern many times over. (Quick aside: I would not be bothered if the next Democratic president drew inspiration from Reconstruction, and instituted harsh measures like stripping GOP Senators of voting privileges, until such time that it becomes fit to govern again. Because, yes, the modern GOP is that bad.)

Because what we do now will affect what type of government we have over the next 20-30 years.

Trump's Helsinki Fiasco

Since Donald Trump became president, I've often reacted to news stories with disgust, anger, frustration, fear, or a combination of the four; but I've only been distressed over current events to the point of losing sleep twice.  November 9, 2016 - the night Trump won the election - was one.  Last night was another.  I have a Chicken Little-type tendency to assume the worst and engage in panicked hyperbole at the earliest sign of bad news, and it's a reflex that I have to work hard to keep in check.  However, in light of recent events, I don't think it's a big stretch to say that the United States is in a bad spot.

On July 16th, in a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump rejected the United States intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, instead choosing to take Russian President Putin at his word.  Trump's refusal to acknowledge this conclusion is significant for two reasons.  First, it wasn't one or two intelligence agencies making that claim, it was the entire intelligence community's unanimous assessment.  Second, on June 13, Special Counsel Mueller had indicted a dozen GRU agents for hacking into the DNC's computer networks (among other targets) to acquire information it intended to use to interfere with the 2016 elections.  That second reason is particularly significant because any case that's going to be made in court requires hard, tangible evidence.  This case, especially.  Mueller is accusing foreign nationals of committing a cyber-crime against US government-affiliated institutions.  Even though the best-case scenario is that the dozen GRU agents will be tried in absentia - if there's a trial at all - Mueller's case needs to be as close to airtight as possible, because of the stakes involved.

Taken together, the intelligence community's assessment and Mueller's indictments mean that the conclusion is pretty conclusive: Russia interfered in the 2016 election.  Yet the President of the United States chose to disregard his own intelligence apparatus' conclusion.

Why did he do that? Or, to ask the question another way, why is Trump so quick to believe Putin? Well, there are a couple of different possibilities.  One is that Trump's ego is driving all of this.  If he had to acknowledge that Russia's interference contributed to his victory, it takes some of the glow off of his win.  That would be a crushing blow to his pride.  Another possibility is Trump's well-documented affinity for dictators and strongmen.  Putin isn't the only authoritarian who Trump has fawned over, but he does seem to hold the place of honor in Trump's hall of heroes.  Yet another possibility is that Trump has a relationship with the Russian government that goes back decades.  Jonathan Chait's recent piece about this has been making the rounds, but Sarah Kendzior has a one-year lead on him.  I'd stop short of calling Trump a Russian "asset" (that word has certain HUMINT connotations), but I think "useful idiot" is more fitting.  I think the Russian government saw Trump as an easy-to-manipulate pawn, and they played him like a fiddle. 

And if the Helsinki presser is any indication, Russia is still playing him.  That is about as terrifying as it gets.  It tells all of America's allies that the President of the United States can't be trusted.  It tells hostile nations that the United States won't push back if another cyber-attack happens.  It tells the world that Trump won't do anything to protect America's national security.  And it tells Russia it has unlimited license to do what it wants.  Trump's performance in Helsinki also adds credibility to long-running suspicions that his loyalty is to Russia.

And while Trump has been enabling Russia, the GOP has been running interference for him.  A handful of its key leaders had a reasonable suspicion in mid-2016 that Trump had an allegiance to Russia, but they kept it a secret.  Its Senate majority leader knew that Russia hacked the DNC, but he refused to publicly confirm that information.  The GOP has tried to undermine Robert Mueller's investigation at every turn - by holding dog-and-pony shows like the Strzok hearings; by spreading falsehoods in the news and on social media; and by refusing to act in response to a growing mountain of evidence that Russia tampered with the 2016 election results, and that the Trump campaign was involved in that effort.

So why is the GOP so committed to helping Trump?

Because the party's future has been tied to Trump since 2015, and it will continue to need him for the next few years.  He helped the GOP win it the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2016, establishing a fast-track for the GOP's legislative agenda.  (Although there have been a handful of self-inflicted injuries.) He appointed ideologically sympathetic judges to several courts, including two (pending Kavanaugh's confirmation) Supreme Court Justices, allowing conservatives to interpret the law for a generation.  And possibly most important of all, he brought a political party that looked like it was dying back to life, by hitting all the right notes that resonate with the conservative base: a tough stance on immigration; a strong, fearsome military; law and order with a draconian flavor; pro-business; anti-regulation - all the things they want to hear.  The fact that his actual track record is pretty dismal is irrelevant.  Trump has hit upon a winning political formula that will keep the GOP in the game for several more election cycles.  And all they have to do is turn a blind eye to someone who never bothered to hide his disdain for American and democratic institutions and ideals.


Which is something they will gladly do, if current events are any indication.  That makes them complicit in Trump's war on American security and well-being.  Putting party over country in normal circumstances is, well, politics.  Putting party over country in the wake of a cyber-attack that most likely influenced the outcome of a presidential election is dereliction of duty.  Trump's conduct in Helsinki shows that he represents a danger to the United States, and he has far exceeded the threshold for being removed from office.  And his enablers in Congress - McConnell, Ryan, Nunes, all of them - I don't know if what they did is considered a crime, but if it is, they should all be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It won't be enough to simply vote them out of office.  Simply voting them out means they become the objects of scorn for a few years, and that's pretty much it. That can't be allowed to happen.  They need to be made into examples, to discourage future of politicians from doing the same thing.  Trials need to be held.  Prison sentences need to be handed down. Safeguards need to be put into place to keep it from happening again. 

Because none of this will simply revert back to normal the day after Trump leaves office.  The damage being done - to our relationships with our allies, to our global reputation, to our citizens' faith in government - will take years to be repaired.  And the longer it goes on, the worse the damage will be. 

Shutdown Winners & Losers

The US government has shut down for who knows how long, so I thought I'd do a post-shutdown recap of the last 24-48 hours.  I'll look at the key parties one by one, and give my $.02 on how they fared.

President Trump: Trump would have gotten a boost if he had allowed Congress to do its job, but (like he has before) he shot himself in the foot.  He nearly had a bipartisan deal ready to go, but his "shithole" fiasco threw a wrench into that.  Now, instead of a modest legislative victory and a probable popularity boost, Trump has a shutdown taking place on his watch.  He also has done very little to resolve this issue, other than rant on Twitter. So this becomes another item on his list of failures and screw-ups as President, but it won't cost him much in terms of popularity: he's gone about as low as he possibly can, and his remaining supporters are unshakeable.

House of Representatives: On one hand, the House passed the measures necessary to keep the government running.  That's a plus.  On the other hand, House Republicans tried to force a choice between CHIP (health insurance for children) and DACA (a provision allowing children of immigrants to remain in the United States.) There's a special place in hell for any group of politicians who try to force this kind of Sophie's Choice.  People don't expect much from House Reps anymore, though.  The House lost a bit of prestige, but not much.

Senate Republicans: Moderate losses for the Senate GOP over this shutdown.  They, along with Trump, precipitated this crisis - first, by defunding CHIP in September for use as a bargaining chip in the future, and spiking the pre-shutdown negotiations by adding several last-minute provisions to the deal. Additionally, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be occupying that perch in hell, next to the House Republicans. Besides being unspeakably immoral, it was also bad politics on McConnell's part.  He tried to create a false dilemma that would cause the Democrats to fold, and it backfired badly.  Maybe he should have been tending to his own party members, because four Senate Republicans voted against the bill; those four would not have been enough to pass the bill, but they do make it harder for Trump and the GOP to lay blame entirely on the Democrats.  Harder, but not impossible - because they are already making that case in the court of public opinion. It's not entirely unexpected, since they tried it before when public opinion turned against them after the last shutdown. However, they do have an easy time framing negative stories in ways that cast them in a positive light.

Democrats: They aren't entirely blameless because they were playing a game of brinkmanship over DACA; however, as I already stated, it takes two to tango.  The GOP is culpable for how they framed the DACA vote, and Trump takes some responsibility for derailing a bipartisan deal.  While I personally approve of renewing both CHIP and DACA, I don't approve of the Democratic Party's methods; they're doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.  And while I would like to see the Dems play hardball more often, I think what they're doing now sets a bad precedent.  We already have one major party that obstructs and employs scorched earth tactics.  We don't need two.

In the final analysis, I put the bulk of the blame on Trump and the GOP.  I think 70% to them, and 30% to the Democrats is a fair distribution.  A lot of this hinges on whose policies are taking a hit.  As I already stated, I support both DACA and CHIP, so part of me wants to see the Dems dig in and fight.  I also don't agree with how the GOP has governed, so I enjoy seeing them be on the receiving end of the same tactics they used.  I know it's corrosive for the country in the long run, though. The 2013 shutdown cost the country a lot, in terms of both treasure and prestige.  This one could do the same if it continues for very long, and at this point it's anyone's guess as to how it ends.  It also makes undoing the climate of hyper-polarization harder.

What Goes Around. . .

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently stated he anticipates more bipartisan cooperation in 2018.  That's right, Mitch McConnell said that.  The same Mitch McConnell who bragged about stonewalling former President Obama's Supreme Court nominee in Obama's final year in office.  The same McConnell who was an integral part of the opposition party's obstructionist strategy.  It doesn't take an expert pundit to figure out what's going on here: McConnell knows the GOP will get crushed in next year's midterms, so he's suddenly realized the value of cooperation so he can extract some favorable legislation before his political capital expires.  So now he wants to play nice - how convenient.  There are probably countless members of the Democratic Party, both voters and elected officials, who don't feel McConnell and the GOP deserve any quarter whatsoever, and who have no intention of cutting them even a millimeter of slack; and given Republicans' conduct during the last eight years, who could blame them?

Here's the thing, though: as gratifying as telling the GOP to get stuffed sounds, it's a bad idea - for a combination of obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.  (Quick note: I'm referring almost entirely to the obscure Congressional rules in this post, not any policy positions; as far as I'm concerned, the GOP is on the wrong side of history on many contemporary social issues - civil rights, environmental protections, education, the church/state separation, among others - and they don't deserve any consideration on these points.  History and sociological research have already rendered verdicts, and it's time for the GOP's policy stances to be thrown onto the pile of failed ideas.  Okay - tangent over.) For one thing, neither party manages to hold a majority forever, so any procedural changes a party makes to the will eventually get passed along to the other party; and when that happens, you're giving the opposition better tools to push its agenda and undo your accomplishments.  It's foolishly shortsighted to behave as if you'll be the party in power for more than a few years, and that the changes you make won't come back to haunt you.  For another, some politicians have long memories and vindictive attitudes; so any Democratic politicians' pettiness or slights will get filed away in the "what goes around, comes around" cabinet.

Something needs to be done, though, because the GOP went beyond an opposition party to sabotaging the government with their obstructionist tactics.  Here's a baseball analogy: have you ever watched a game where the batter steps out of the box over and over, to frustrate the pitcher and get him to do something dumb? It's technically within the rules, but it's an unsportsmanlike exploitation of a loophole.  That's exactly what the GOP did with Merrick Garland: the Constitution says the Senate gives "advice and consent" over SCOTUS nominees, so the Senate had no obligation to give Garland a nomination hearing.

Someone might ask why Congress doesn't just rewrite the rules so there aren't loopholes for any party to exploit.  It's a pretty obvious solution, after all; but saying it would be difficult is like saying the sun is kind of warm.  Let's take a look at the possible ways of going about it, and all the obstacles in the way.

• The White House/Supreme Court intervenes.  Nope, awful idea.  Congress is, in many ways, a self-policing organization, and that's by design according to the principles of separation of powers and checks & balances.  Letting it write its own procedural rules leads to some disastrous results, as anyone who pays attention to government knows; but designating the Executive or Judicial Branch to manage it means Congress ceases to exist as a coequal branch of government.  Additionally, reforming Congress is outside the scope of either of the other two governmental branches.  This might solve the problem of Congressional mismanagement, but creates a far bigger one.
• Congress reforms itself.  Good luck making this happen.  Neither of the two parties truly wants to close any of those procedural loopholes.  As I already explained, the majority party likes having those little "cheat codes" while they're in power, and the minority party knows it will have its own turn sooner or later.  (For example, the Garland nomination fiasco: Mitch McConnell rightly accused the Democratic Party of hypocrisy, noting that it had done nearly the same thing during the Bush II Administration.) Those little political machinations also provide good material for reelection ads: "The other party did X, Y, and Z. Send me back to Washington and I'll clean up its mess." Which they might, but not in a way that solves the underlying issue or that can't be reversed within a few election cycles.  Senators and Representatives like those procedural tricks, and the only way to put a stop to it would be to "reboot" Congress: send every single member packing (What, you think they all came in knowing how to manipulate the processes? Someone more experienced taught them.), and strip away all those arcane rules that accumulated over the decades.
• An outside oversight agency.  There are risks involved, such as the agency being co-opted or supplanted by political insiders, and its mission distorted and turned into a partisan weapon.  Case in point: between 1976 and 1988, the League of Women Voters organized and hosted presidential debates; unfortunately, the League relinquished the task to the Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization established by the two major parties that has drawn criticism for allegedly working to exclude 3rd-party candidates.  Even if the agency was not co-opted, it would still add another layer of bureaucracy to the federal government.  
• Grassroots efforts (ballot initiatives, etc.).  It has potential, especially as people have gotten more politically active during Trump's administration; but there's no guarantee that the momentum will sustain itself.  Some Americans also possess more zeal than knowledge, and that's a moderate problem with this approach.

Those are some pretty big challenges to overcome, so the likelihood of forging a cooperative set of rules is very slim.  Not impossible, but very unlikely.  There's one other thing to consider: the risk of going too far.  I've already given my take, which is that the GOP is going beyond acting like a minority party; but many of those "cheat codes" serve an important purpose in a democracy.  A minority party needs some protections, to keep the majority from imposing its will at every turn.  This creates a lot of watered-down and unpopular compromises, but hey, that's democracy.  The GOP's obstructionism could provoke a predictable overreaction that sweeps away many important safeguards against the tyranny of the majority.  That cure would be worse than the disease.

Bottom line: I think we're stuck with what we have now.  The likely outcome is that nothing changes, and the best case scenario is a very modest improvement.  That's not very rose-colored, but it is what it is.

The Turning Point

Some day, maybe a few decades from now, I think the history textbooks will refer to the events of the past week as the "before and after" moment in the Trump presidency.  The moment when he hit rock bottom, and showed the entire world just how wildly unqualified he is at being president.  What makes this different from before? That's a fair question.  It's not like Trump's incompetence hasn't been on display before: at the United Nations, meeting European heads of state, mishandling the North Korean nuclear situation.  The difference is that now, we're seeing the consequences of that incompetence in tangible, horrific terms - pictures of devastation and stories of suffering coming in from Puerto Rico.  Before Puerto Rico, the consequences of Trump's incompetence could only be measured in harsh rhetoric and cooled relationships.  Trump certainly antagonized heads of state, among others, but nobody died.  He raised tensions with North Korea, but still, nobody died.  That's the difference here.  Trump's screw-ups up until now carried consequences, but not dire ones.  Before Puerto Rico, his incompetence didn't matter the way it does now. 

A US territory was leveled by a natural disaster, and Trump's reaction has been marked by callous indifference, zero sense of urgency, and political grandstanding.  A president who is more concerned about San Juan's mayor hurting his little feelings, who takes days to waive a law in order to speed up deliveries of aid, who lectures residents with a "pull yourself up" sanctimonious attitude, is unfit to lead.  Trump's unfitness has been obvious since Day 1, but this is arguably its worst manifestation.  This is his "Nero fiddled" moment. 

Donald Trump has crossed over from a loudmouthed buffoon to a dangerously incompetent president.  He has Americans' blood on his hands now.  The GOP Congressmen who shield him are complicit, and their constituents need to exert pressure on them to stand up to Trump.  The citizens who support Trump after what we just witnessed need to walk back their support, or otherwise be called out and shunned.  Personally, I don't want to associate with those people anymore.  It's not political theater anymore.  Those people and Congressmen are enabling someone who will do grave damage the longer he remains in office.  Trump is not a harmless nuisance any longer, and it's time to start considering the need to impeach him.

DACA, Congress, and Separation of Powers

I knew I'd eventually write something that would infuriate my (very small) audience, and based on the posts I'm seeing in my Facebook feed, this post could very well be the one that does it.  Don't worry, I've picked a last meal and I've got a cigarette and a blindfold - just in case.

Okay, so DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).  That's the current Divisive Issue of the Week.  I'll start with a little quick-and-dirty history on DACA before I discuss the recent developments.  DACA was President Obama's 2012 executive action on immigration, which partly resulted from repeated Congressional failures to pass its own piece of immigration reform, known as the DREAM Act.  Remember, executive action.  That will become important later.  I'm not sure how DACA meshes with the proposed DREAM Act, or with Congress' 2013 immigration reform act (S.744), and that's further down the rabbit hole than I plan to go.

That's DACA in a nutshell.  Now, as anyone who has followed the news recently knows, President Trump announced that he plans to roll back DACA, along with a complementary program called DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans).  His reversal will be delayed for six months, to give Congress time to act (presumably to craft its own legislation).  Okay, unpopular opinion time. . . Constitutionally, Trump is doing the right thing here.  Congress is the lawmaking branch of government, and it has the duty to come up with immigration laws.  Yes, Obama faced an extremely stubborn and unruly Congress (it absolutely lived up to it's nickname of "The Party of No"), but that's how the framework of government is structured.  The Founders assigned lawmaking authority to Congress; that duty was never granted to the President/Executive Branch.  I can understand Obama's frustration and desire to get something done - Congress was doing its best to block him at every turn, and nobody would stand for that.  It's human nature to push back against another person or group of people preventing you from accomplishing anything.  Maybe one person in 1,000 could resist that urge.  But the president was (is) supposed to resist that urge.  It's one of the core principles of the federal government - the president does not craft legislation.  There's no "except if Congress won't cooperate" loophole.

Not that Congress is blameless.  I'm not giving Obama a pass, but I understand why he acted the way he did.  He stepped in to fill a vacuum that Congress created, and he saw the obstructionist Congress as an obstacle to overcome.  It had six years and change to craft decent legislation, but instead it grandstanded with stunts like trying to repeal the ACA over fifty times - a task Congressional Republicans knew they couldn't achieve, but did anyway to keep their voters energized - and when the GOP gained a unified government in the 2016 elections, it had nothing prepared.  The GOP railed against the ACA for six years, and evidently put zero effort into writing a better piece of legislation.  Congress didn't govern, it obstructed and it abandoned its responsibility.

Now, the immigration issue is back in Congress' court, where it should be according to the legislative process.  Well, the CATO Institute predicts that rolling back DACA & DAPA will have a high economic cost:

"We estimate that the fiscal cost of immediately deporting the approximately 750,000 people currently in the DACA program would be over $60 billion to the federal government along with a $280 billion reduction in economic growth over the next decade."

Those are massive economic consequences, and if Congress was smart, it would vote to keep DACA in place, or at least craft some nearly-identical legislation.  This should be an easy decision.  However, Trump is still popular with the GOP base, and they want to see DACA repealed, in addition to being anti-immigrant.  One of Trump's key campaign promises was stricter immigration reform; and while he's a terrible statesman, he knows how to court public opinion.  Basically, Congressional Republicans are in a bind: rescind DACA and take a huge economic hit or preserve it somehow and enrage their base.  I predict Congress will let DACA lapse, because the Trump cabinet confirmation hearings and the ACA/BCRA fiasco showed that many Congressional Republicans will still vote along party lines, even if that vote carries serious economic consequences.  I do not trust Congress to make the smart decision here.

Even though I think Congress would be making a huge mistake by reversing DACA, it is Congress' mistake to make.  Trump is actually doing the right thing by rolling back an executive order and putting the responsibility on Congress.  Is repealing DACA cruel, foolish, and petty? Absolutely.  But we have to see beyond the immediate policy outcome we want and look at the long game.  No single official or branch of government should have too much power, and there is a convincing argument that the Executive has concentrated too much power over the past few decades.  Curbing that power will cause pain sooner or later - if not DACA, it will be something else.  But it needs to be done.

A few additional links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/us/us-to-stop-deporting-some-illegal-immigrants.html?pagewanted=all
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/349148-daca-debate-turns-toward-congress
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/03/trump-dreamers-immigration-daca-immigrants-242301