On Wednesday, June 20, 2012, the Waco Tribune-Herald Editorial board published an opinion that questioned the politics driving President Obama's deferred action for immigrant youth policy but supporting the policy and calling on Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform:
Putting aside the pure politics behind all this, we encourage friends and neighbors to evaluate the meris of such a policy regardless of whether it comes from Obama or Rubio. This decision should not be about these youths' parents, who broke the law, or Republicans and Democrats. Each political party has had its chance to pursue immigration reform in recent years -- and either scotched or botched the effort.
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It's easy to say these youths broke the law (even if they came here through no will of their own) and that illegal activity cannot be condoned. The problem, of course, is more complex. If these immigrant youths are to grow to adulthood in this country, we should expect -- no, demand -- they be educated, skilled, fluent in English and functional. If we are to expect all that, we as a people must establish at least some protections in terms of legal status, either by presidential fiat or Congress. Our belief is that Congress should be pursuing these reforms.
In the shadows
But to keep these youths in the shadows, fearful of deportation, promises to make them second-class citizens rather than rising to the responsibilities we all face as good taxpaying Americans. It's not worthy of the noble ideals behind our founding. We need comprehensive immigration reform to resolve these complicated issues -- and the first step is getting past ugly culture wars that bring out the worst in us.
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This much we do kow: Doing nothing as this human crisis continues is not only heartless and self-destructive, it's also inexcusable.
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