LettersDonald Trump fair on US immigration? Ask the ‘Dreamers’
- Trump was never about fairness, he just wants fewer people from what he called “s***hole countries”
Apparently unbeknown to anyone in Hong Kong, American immigration policy never allowed just about anyone to cross the border and claim citizenship. The only policy that comes closest to this is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, initiated under the Obama administration.
This programme allows some of the illegal migrants brought into the US as children aged below 16, or with families that overstayed their visas, to have job permits and protection from deportation, provided they do not have a criminal record. These youngsters do not enjoy the welfare benefits that locals do and have to work much harder to achieve the same results as their neighbours.
Immigrants not protected by the law will be deported once found, no questions asked, and this has been the case for as long as I can remember. DACA was an act of kindness to those brought in as children and feared deportation, not an open-door policy that welcomed in the entire population of Mexico. Young people who benefited from this programme could contribute to America.