Both parties fail on Dream Act

Opinion: June 25, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times: When the Obama administration decided last week to suspend temporarily the deportation of some young undocumented immigrants, Republicans in Congress threw a fit, complaining that such decisions should be made by Congress, not by unilateral presidential action. But what else was President Obama to do? Republicans have long had the ability to legislate a lasting fix to the problem but have repeatedly failed to do so.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who has been crafting a conservative version of the so-called Dream Act, immediately criticized the president for “going around Congress,” and he told the Wall Street Journal that he would not proceed with his own bill because of the administration’s decision to act first.

But such actions are disingenuous. If the big problem for Republicans is not what the president did but rather how he went about it, then Rubio and his colleagues should exert control over the issue by enacting a real Dream Act. Surely, those young people are still in need of a permanent solution.

The administration’s new policy is to stop deporting undocumented people who came to the United States before they turned 16, who have lived here for at least five years, who lack any serious criminal convictions and who are students, high school graduates, serving in the military or honorably discharged veterans.