Did Dreamers Break the Law?

Today I watched Fareed Zakaria's program GPS on CNN.  In asking a question he repeated an analogy used by some people to describe their position on Dreamers (people who have signed up for DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).  These are people who were brought to the U.S. as children and who some believe are law breakers and should be deported.

As I recall it was something like, letting Dreamers stay in the U.S. is like letting the kids of a bank robber keep the stolen money.

Said that way it seems like reasonable logic for sending adults brought here as children back to the country of their birth.  Except that the analogy is not a fair description of the situation.

I think a better analogy is that rounding up and deporting the adult dreamers would be like asking adult children to repay money stolen by their parents and used by their parents to support the children as they grew up.

Certainly, unspent money or assets purchased with stolen money should be returned, but funds spent to support children (feed, cloth, educate, shelter, etc.) are not the responsibility of the children. 

If the new rule is that adults are responsible for repaying debts for money obtained illegally by their parents and spent to support them when they were growing up, a lot of U.S. citizens should start sweating.

Discuss Gun Saftey Issues Now

In the aftermath of the mass killing of students in Parkland, Florida, the usual cast of characters again claimed that the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting is not the time to discuss policy changes in response to the shooting.  They claim we don't know all the details of the incident at Parkland so we could be suggesting policy changes that won't address the issue or maybe we could make the problem worse.  This is obviously not true, but people like the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, continue to repeat that lie.

Let's give Paul Ryan and others the benefit of the doubt.  Let's us assume they really believe what they are saying and are not just paying off debts to the NRA and some of their base voters.

To these people I would ask, what policy changes would you suggest based on the facts we now know from the shootings at the concert at Las Vegas or at the Pulse night club in Orlando or at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia or at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut or at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas or at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado or at ...