"PR-style hooey"

Mickey Kaus writes in the Chicago Tribune,

...a lot of what's said about the DACA recipients is PR-style hooey.

For example, it's often said — indeed, former President Barack Obama just recently said — that the approximately 800,000 of them were "brought to this country by their parents." Well, many were. But that's not required to qualify as a protected Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipient under the various plans, including Obama's. You just have to have entered the country illegally before age 16. You could have decided to sneak in against your parents' wishes. You're still a “Dreamer!”

Likewise, we're told DACA recipients are college-bound high school grads or military personnel. That's an exaggeration. All that's actually required is that the person enroll in a high school course or an "alternative," including online courses and English-as-a-second-language classes. Under Obama's now-suspended program, you didn't even have to stay enrolled.

Compared with the general population, DACA recipients are not especially highly skilled. A recent survey for several pro-”Dreamer” groups, with participants recruited by those groups, found that while most DACA recipients are not in school, the vast majority work. But their median hourly wage is only $15.34, meaning that many are competing with hard-pressed lower-skilled Americans.

Still, taking the DACA recipients as a whole, not just the dreamiest of them, they represent an appealing group of would-be citizens. So why not show compassion and legalize them? Because, as is often the case, the pursuit of pure compassion comes with harmful side effects.

First, it would create perverse incentives. Can you imagine a stronger incentive for illegal immigration than the idea that if you sneak into the country your kids will get to be U.S. citizens? Sure, the protections don't currently apply to recent entrants — under Obama's plan, you had to have come before 2007. But those dates can be changed — Obama himself tried to do it once. And the rationale for rewarding those who arrive when young — that they're here through "no fault of their own" and know only America, etc. — can apply on into the future, with no apparent stopping point. What about the poor kids who came in 2008? 2018? There's a reason no country has a rule that if you sneak in as a minor, you're a citizen. We'd be inviting the world.

Second, it would have knock-on effects. Under "chain migration" rules established in 1965 — ironically as a sop to conservatives, who foolishly thought that they'd boost European inflows — new citizens can bring in their siblings and adult children, who can bring in their siblings and in-laws, until whole villages have moved to the United States. That means today's DACA recipients would quickly become millions of newcomers, who may well be low-skilled and who would almost certainly include the parents who brought them — the ones who, in theory, are at fault.

...Trump's immigration crackdown, simply stepping up enforcement of current laws, is already helping to tighten the low end of the labor market and boost wages of low-skilled workers. News organizations are featuring stories from employers who aren't getting their usual supply of workers in the U.S. illegally and are forced to take radical measures — such as raising wages. Proof of this connection, in the public mind, may be what terrifies the pro-immigration lobby the most.

Read more here.