LA Times: Trump’s ‘Best Solution’ Is Failed ‘Gang of Eight’ Amnesty Plan

The Los Angeles Times says President Donald Trump’s “best solution” on immigration is resurrecting the failed Gang of Eight plan that would give amnesty to an estimated 12 to 30 million illegal aliens.

In a new editorial for the LA Times, editors at the newspaper say Trump should “endorse” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gives temporary amnesty to young illegal aliens, and resurrect an amnesty plan that failed back in 2013:

As president, Trump has expressed sympathy for the Dreamers’ plight and has left the DACA program alone even as he ramped up deportations and ended Obama’s planned extension of protections to parents of citizens and legal residents, but who are themselves in the United States illegally. Yet Trump also has not endorsed DACA, likely fearing backlash from political supporters who bought into his draconian views on immigration.

Those waters were further muddied recently when Texas and several other states threatened to file a legal challenge to DACA if Trump did not rescind it. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly told members of Congress that he thought the Obama executive action that created DACA was likely illegal and an abuse of executive power. He questioned whether the Trump administration would defend it in court if the states did sue. Trump responded that he would make the decision on DACA, not Kelly or U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions (whose antipathy to immigration runs deep). Meanwhile, the Dreamers are left in limbo as the infighting in the White House continues between the hard-liners who want to end DACA and those whose hearts aren’t made completely of ice.

The best solution here is a comprehensive immigration overhaul that would include a reprieve for the Dreamers, but it’s quixotic to think that this White House, and this Congress, would ever agree on humane reforms. The closest we came was the 2013 “Gang of Eight” Senate bill that, while imperfect, offered a bipartisan blueprint for dealing with immigrants who are in the country illegally, among other improvements in the law. That measure died in the House when Republican Speaker John A. Boehner refused to let it come to a vote.

The Gang of Eight amnesty plan, created by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) – and supported by the Republican establishment and Democrats – would have legalized the millions of illegal aliens currently in the U.S., while failing to lower legal immigration levels or close the U.S.-Mexico Border.

DACA, created by former President Obama, was opposed by Trump on the campaign trail, with the then-candidate calling the executive amnesty unlawful. Now, with push from multinational business executives, Trump has continued DACA, even adding more illegal aliens onto the rolls of the program, which allows them to work legally in the U.S.

Despite the election of Trump, who adamantly opposes amnesty for illegal aliens, Republicans are working with Democrats to re-create the DREAM Act, which would give permanent amnesty to DACA recipients, Breitbart Texas reported.

Immigration hawks say that not only would an amnesty create a flood of illegal immigration across the U.S. Border, but it would also plummet wages for American workers who have already seen their wages suffer for decades to rise.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.