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Jen Psaki Claims Illegal Aliens Are Part of Fabric of America and 'What the American Dream Represents'

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If illegal immigration is part of the fabric of America, why is it illegal?

If it’s “what the American dream represents,” why do we have border controls at all?

These are questions White House press secretary Jen Psaki ought to have considered before Friday’s media briefing at the White House. As Breitbart noted, the event took place on the same day President Joe Biden met with six immigration activists who are recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program which gives certain legal protections to illegal immigrants who were brought here as children.

According to The New York Times, the activists pressed the president on immigration reform, a thorny issue considering the Democrats’ current package includes amnesty for up to 11 million Americans. In its present form, the plan has zero chance of passing the Senate under normal processes, given it would require ten Republicans to overcome a filibuster and the Democrats have a better chance of finding Jimmy Hoffa’s grave than they do of finding those GOP votes.

The Times reported earlier in the month Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was purportedly looking to pass the amnesty bill via budget reconciliation, a filibuster-proof process which is supposed to deal with spending and taxation matters. Schumer’s threadbare logic: Since making 11 million illegal immigrants American would have an ameliorative effect on the American economy.

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To put this in perspective via a metaphor, Schumer’s budget reconciliation scheme works a bit like a 1971 Fiat that’s been left to rot in a barn for a half-century: It doesn’t.

However, the White House has to keep on putting a good face on their proposed immigration overhaul — particularly by emphasizing DACA recipients, whose continued presence in the United States is far less controversial than other aspects of the plan. And yet, Psaki managed to muck it up when she was asked by a reporter about the “message is the president trying to send by having DACA recipients come” to the White House.

“Well, first, I think the President believes that DACA recipients are part of the American story and part of the fabric of who we are as a country and kind of what the American dream represents. So bringing them here is an opportunity to highlight that,” Psaki said.

“And there has historically been agreement about the im– the powerful stories of DACA recipients, of the incredible contributions they have the potential to make in our country, from Democrats and Republicans.

“He is certainly bringing them here to highlight that. And as he said in his joint session address, he believes there’s an opportunity to move forward on areas where we agree. So let’s find areas where we agree on immigration reform.

“I will say, it remains — he put forward an immigration bill, as you know, on his first day in office; he continues to advocate for that. He talked about it in his joint session speech. And he’ll continue to have conversations and have his senior staff have conversations about how we can move that or components of that forward.”

Twitter users were about as impressed with this as I was:

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DACA recipients are always the poster children for Democrats’ strange ideas about illegal immigration. After all, they were brought here as kids; don’t you feel sorry for them, you heartless pigs?

Yes, one can commiserate with the limbo DACA recipients find themselves in — a limbo which exists because the Democrats didn’t bother getting DACA passed by Congress because that was too difficult, it must be noted — but buried within this melange of clichés are some truly dangerous ideas about what the American dream entails to the Biden administration.

Bringing children to the United States illegally isn’t “part of the fabric of who we are as a country,” nor is it “what the American dream represents.” They’re still here illegally — and, by that logic, we could say other illegal immigrants represent the American dream and the fabric of this country. Why not just give them all amnesty?

That’s not hyperbole, since this is what’s in the immigration bill the president put forward — and as the White House press secretary speaks in dulcet tones how “there’s an opportunity to move forward on areas where we agree,” the administration’s top man in the Senate is trying to find a way to move forward on amnesty no matter what Republicans agree or disagree about.

Are illegal immigrants 'what the American dream represents?'

In fact, that’s not dissimilar to how DACA itself was brought about. After former President Barack Obama couldn’t find a way to work with congressional Republicans to pass an immigration reform bill that would have granted DACA recipients the protections they currently enjoy, since he’d have to give up too much in return, Obama simply brought the program into being through an executive order in 2014 — even after he said he didn’t have the constitutional authority to do so on numerous occasions, according to PolitiFact.

Illegal immigration isn’t part of the fabric of our country, nor is it part of the American dream. If that were the case, one could easily point out the reductio ad absurdum of this line of thinking: We could open the borders, remove immigration checkpoints at our airports and let anyone who so desires enter the country. After all, these are people who just want to become part of the fabric of America — right?

No, of course not. And while DACA recipients may be illegal immigrants that we can feel at least a modicum of sympathy for, they remain illegal immigrants. No amount of soaring rhetoric from Jen Psaki, alas, will alter that salient fact.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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