Many people have blamed Obama for the government shut down and the indecisive nature of our current legislature when it comes to passing a law for the dreamers in this country. Frankly, I believe that our society and law makers are spending too much of their time blaming other people for the current situation rather than doing something about it. Marc Thieseen submitted a piece that insinuated that if Obama wanted to get a law passed for the dreamers of this country, he would have done so due to the fact that there was a majority of Democrats in the Senate at the time of his presidency. Thieseen noted that a promise was a promise and Obama never fulfilled that promise. Instead of passing a law through congress, Obama created the executive order known as DACA. Thieseen called this order unlawful.
It is hard to believe that an unlawful order could be overlooked in our United States Congress. Congress has the power to repeal or change an executive order. Yes, the president can veto the change; however, Congress can overturn that veto with a two-third majority vote and inherently kill the order. Therefore, if DACA was as big of a problem as Congress is making it seem, our Congress would have inherently killed the order. There are nearly 800,000 DACA approved immigrants and 1.3 million who qualified for the program if they would have applied. All of these immigrants are over here illegally due to a choice that was not theirs to make. Many have now established their lives here in America. If America were to deport all illegal immigrants who are protected under the DACA order, we would be tearing apart thousands of families. America is now in a bind to figure out what is morally, legally, and financially appropriate. It seems that many public officials are battling with these three difficult components to make the decision.
Being people of such power and prestige, one would think that our political leaders would stop pushing the blame on those who no longer can do anything about the situation and do something about it themselves. If this was such a big topic to our current president, he could push an executive order to get rid of DACA, however, he is leaving the state of this order in the hands of Congress. Inherently, we need to educate ourselves on the role and abilities of our government before we place blame on any president or government official because it is not one sole person’s fault. As American citizen’s we can educate and provide testimonies to our legislatures. Instead of telling them the result of their decision to remove DACA recipients, we should show them. We can flood the offices of our Congress members with pictures of some of their constituents’ friends, families, church families, co workers. We can show them how many families they are tearing apart; how many lives they are destroying through deportation and sending back into a country that their family left for a reason.
This does not have to be solely in the hands of our political leaders. It can be our decision too. So, why not? Send pictures and hand written testimonies, make phone calls, protest! If we want a decision to be made, we need to help make that decision. It is ridiculous for this cycle to continue: to allow our present political leaders to blame our past president and our past congressmen and women for the condition of our country regarding immigration. Let’s stop blaming our past for our present and make a decision.
_ Jennifer Reed
