Grassley, Ernst plan to take up DACA in Congress

     On Sept. 12, President Trump announced the demise of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. He offered six months for Congress to come up with a solution to keeping DACA as a legal immigration program.

     DACA was enacted by past-President Obama in 2012 as a way to help protect children who were brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents. DACA offered temporary aid for these children to attend schools, college and gain employment.

     Both Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Joni Ernst offered their thoughts on Trump’s DACA ruling, and agreed that Congress should be the governing body to take up DACA.

     “What the president did kind of puts Congress in the hot seat,” admitted Grassley. “But that’s where we should have been when Obama issued this order in the first place.”

     Grassley expects Congress to “get pretty deeply involved with DACA now that they are back from their summer recess.

     “I assume it’s quite a locomotive that will move fairly easily,” eluded Grassley.

     He didn’t feel DACA needed to be attached to any other legislation to move swiftly through both the Senate and House.

     “There are a lot of illegal immigration issues that could be added to it that need to be added as well,” Grassley added.

     However, one immigration issue Grsssley does not want to see added to any DACA bill is the border wall along the Mexico/U.S. border.

     “Connecting a piece of the wall to this legislation is not realistic,” he said. “Finding a workable compromise will take a lot of negotiation.”

     Ernst said Trump’s decision on Tuesday shows he’s not willing to “overreach” where Congress is concerned.

     “President Trump has chosen not to continue this overreach of authority by the past administration,” she said. “I do believe Congress does need to take this up.”

     Ernst admitted that the children DACA protects were not brought into the U.S. on their own accord.

     “They were brought here by their parents by no fault of their own,” she said. “They are living in our society, so we must have great compassion as we deal with this issue.”

     Ernst, like Grassley, questioned the idea of also addressing other immigration issues.

     “How do we secure our borders to know that any changes we make to the (DACA) law are being enforced?” she asked hypothetically.

     Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller joined dozens of other states, counties and cities in their efforts to fight President Trump on his DACA ruling by signing on to the national lawsuit. Ernst said she figured Miller would act in this manner, but didn’t feel it was a “fruitful effort.”

     She said she stands by her convictions that DACA should have been and will be left in Congress’ hands.

     “Right now, they’re (DACA children, known as “dreamers”) living here under an executive order,” she said. “That’s not law of the land. The best we could do is to move ahead as leaders in our party (Republican) and actually resolve this issue, which wasn’t done any time in the past by the Democrat leaders. Now is our opportunity to be leaders on this issue.”