DACA endangered again

Last Friday, a federal judge in Texas has ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA is illegal and that future applications cannot be filed. Judge Andrew Hanen’s ruling does not immediately cancel current permits held by DACA recipients, but for the untold number of future applicants, they are barred from submitting applications. This situation also places Dreamers in legal uncertainty as they really do not have a solid and determinate legal status to hold on to.

Judge Hanen ruled that Congress had not granted the Executive Branch through the Department of Homeland Security the authority to create DACA and as such it cannot be given free discretion to grant lawful presence outside the ambit of the statutory authority. His decision, though not favorable as what Dreamers have hoped, also acknowledges what every politician in Washington agrees --that DACA is here to stay and that it cannot be simply ignored or slashed away by the courts.

This decision illustrates what I have been trumpeting in this column all these years. The US, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, has to confront the thorny issue of immigration reform once and for all. The US has gone to the moon and back, explored the boundaries of space, discovered life-saving medicines, created the most advanced technological innovations in almost every aspect of the modern human experience yet, it cannot solve this basic problem of immigration.

Democrats and Republicans alike do not come to settle at a middle ground where they could set aside their competing interests. While thousands of lives are at stake and individual futures are on the line, politicians content themselves in pushing this issue down the gutter with no results to show but empty rhetoric and showboating. Members of Congress should muster the will and the courage to draft and pass the immigration reform bill without fear or favor. It cannot abdicate from its constitutional duties by simply passing it along to the president. When other DACA cases reach the courts, time and again, it will always have a predictable decision of rendering it unconstitutional the way it is structured at the moment. It is only until Congress passes a law addressing this issue that challenges can be fended off.

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There has been a lot of angst on the possibility of Sen. Manny Pacquiao running for president in the 2022 election. In social media, there are a lot of memes, videos, and commentaries either supporting or opposing his run. On the side there are other who are also said to be interested in the coveted seat in Malacañang.

All I can say is let them run. One is entitled to their own ambition or delusion, whatever applies. It’s not for the media, the trolls, the Tiktok influencers, the celebrities, China or other countries, to decide who is fit to be the next president of the Philippines. The Filipino people will have to make that decision. The bigger question is, do we trust the judgment of the electorate? It would be presumptuous of us to assume that we don’t trust the political maturity of the Filipino people. As long as the elections are clean, honest, and credible, we deserve the kind of leader we elected.

With all the present and emerging problems the country faces --COVID 19 pandemic, ballooning national debt, worsening economic deficit, looming confrontation with China, rising crime and unemployment-- the coming 2022 presidential election is not of the same mold as the elections of yesteryears. It would be the most consequential election in the history of the Philippines and as such, the Filipino people better get it right.