DACA Desaparecidos

   The president copped out of his threat to cancel the Dreamer program immediately and deport all undocumented people who came to America as children and have grown up to be responsible, law-abiding workers and students.
   Instead, he suspended the program for six months and told Congress to fix it. Now, of course, if a divided Congress fails to resolve the issue, the president can claim another victory, or at least blame someone else for not fixing the problem.
   After five years of following the rules and conscientiously registering with the federal government to legalize their presence in America, many thousands of workers and students will now disappear from the prying eyes of government agents to avoid deportation to a land they have never known.
   Rather than deal with a complex problem, the president has passed the buck to Congress, suspending the DACA program for six months. The policy is officially known as Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals, was initiated by former President Barack Obama to help resolve the status of those who were brought to America by their parents and have grown up in this country.
   As a presidential candidate, the man who now occupies the Oval Office first promised to cancel the Dreamer program on Day One of his term in office, and deport all undocumented newcomers, at the same time keeping families together, including children who were born here and are therefore citizens.
   Now he has abandoned both those promises, tossing the problem to Congress with instructions that the issue be resolved in six months.
   Some 97 percent of those who have registered for the DACA program are either working, in school or in the military, and have no criminal record.
   Clearly, those who are here illegally, have no job and have a criminal record are not likely to register for the DACA program, since if they do they will immediately be deported. They have already gone to ground are even less likely to surface than before.
   With cancellation of the DACA program, they will be joined by many thousands more who have tried to legalize their status. By registering with the program, these folk -- Americans in all but legal status -- have provided government agents with their names, addresses, places of employment or school attendance, plenty of information to find them easily and deport them.
   Now they will simply leave home, quit their jobs or schools and disappear lest they be ousted from the only country they have ever known.
   Strictly speaking, they may not be legal residents, but neither are they stupid.