Trump action on young immigrants divides some GOP districts

Associated Press

MONROE, GA.

Anthony Pham immigrated to the United States in 1982 from Vietnam and became a citizen five years later, after President Ronald Reagan signed an immigration law that sped the legalization process for millions of new Americans.

Now a business owner and proud Republican in Georgia’s staunchly conservative 10th Congressional District, Pham says he supports maintaining legal status for young immigrants living in the U.S. illegally who were brought to the country as children.

When they come here as children, they can become American citizens if they are good, not bad people,” Pham says of the 800,000 or so immigrants affected by President Donald Trump’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Children Program (DACA) put in place during the Obama administration.

Trump says he’s giving Congress six months to end the limbo status for these young immigrants. Yet Pham says that what Congress does – or doesn’t do – won’t change his support for the president or his congressman, outspoken conservative Jody Hice.

Pham’s view echoes across Republican congressional districts such as Georgia’s 10th, a wide expanse of small towns between Atlanta and Augusta. And it highlights the political conundrum facing deeply divided Republicans whom Trump has called on to craft some kind of legislative solution, giving them an election-year deadline.

The conservative voters who dominate here and in many other GOP districts profess varying degrees of sympathy for the immigrants affected by Obama’s program and then Trump’s reversal. But these voters also are convinced that illegal immigration is a drag on Americans’ economic opportunity, and they want the GOP-controlled Congress to stand with a president they see as defending U.S. workers and the rule of law.

That means members of Congress have little incentive to risk angering core supporters with any legislation that can be branded as “amnesty.”

Republican Troy Trantham, 77, says immigrants are “getting the mine” while American workers “are getting the shaft.” That’s a biting version of a common argument here that immigrants, particularly those in the country illegally, get public benefits without paying taxes.

There are Republicans in this Georgia district favoring a legislative solution, including one who wants to challenge Hice next year.

“There needs to be a fix so these kids don’t have to look around the corner for an ICE agent every time they try to contribute to society,” says Joe Hunt, an executive with a restaurant franchising business in Athens, Ga.

“It’s just not an easy answer, if they came here when they were 6-years-old, or even babies,” said Gene Briscoe, an 82-year-old retiree in Monroe who voted for Trump.