Trump Unveils Strategy On Killing Obama’s Executive Amnesty. It Doesn’t Do The Trick.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration leaked out the new details of its proposal to end President Obama’s executive amnesty. The plan seems calibrated to please no one while, in the end, leaving in place the federal government’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy regarding so-called DREAMers. Here are the elements of the plan:

• The administration will stop consideration of new applications for legal status beginning today;
• Those whose current permits expire between now and March 5, 2018 can apply for a new two-year permit. They must do so before October 5;
• Some so-called DREAMers — people under the age of 16 and below the age of 31 brought into the country by parents before 2012 — will be granted new legal status. Others won’t.
• Even after March 5 — the deadline for enforcement of immigration law, according to the Trump administration — the Trump White House says it won’t start deporting DREAMers in serious numbers, but will continue to follow the Obama administration’s focus on “criminals.”

Two things are clear from this plan. First, Trump has no serious intention of deporting DREAMers. Instead, he wants to use DACA as a bargaining chip to get the Trump wall funded. Second, Trump isn’t likely to get what he wants, because he’s bluffing about enforcement of immigration law. Democrats know it, Republicans know it, the media know it. But that won’t stop the media and Democrats from playing Trump’s revocation of DACA as a cruel first step in the deportation of millions, and Republicans from shying away from Trump’s policy in response.