Idaho attorney general calls them ‘illegal aliens.’ We call them ‘neighbors’ | Opinion

The headline on Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador’s press release was stark: “AG Labrador Stops Biden Administration from Giving Obamacare to Illegal Aliens.”

Labrador was touting a federal court’s decision this week to halt a Biden administration rule that would have allowed people who were brought into the country as children to qualify for health care subsidies as provided by law.

This subset of undocumented immigrants are often referred to as “Dreamers,” or DACA recipients, standing for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

DACA recipients are innocent bystanders in the immigration debate – having been brought to the United States as children, usually not of their own decision.

DACA is an Obama-era program that was open to migrants who arrived in the U.S. before 2007, were under 16 when they arrived and were under 31 when the program was created in June 2012.

Today, many of them are contributing members of society, much to the benefit of the country.

The use of the phrase “illegal aliens” to describe DACA recipients is dehumanizing and mean-spirited.

What else would you expect from Labrador, the man who once callously declared, “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

Even President-elect Donald Trump said he supports DACA recipients.

“We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age,” Trump said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “And many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country.”

Details about DACA immigrants

About 835,000 undocumented migrants have registered with DACA nationwide since the program started, including an estimated 2,760 DACA recipients in Idaho, as of a 2020 report from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.

Approximately 544,690 active DACA recipients live in the country, according to the most recent survey of DACA recipients conducted by The Center for American Progress.

Among 2023 survey respondents, a recipient’s average age at the time of arrival was only 6.6 years old, and they’ve spent an average of 25.2 years in the country. The 2023 survey found that 96% are employed or enrolled in school, and 31% are first-time homeowners and pay mortgages.

Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans support legal status for DACA recipients.

A Pew Research Center poll in 2020 found that 74% of Americans supported granting legal status to DACA, including 54% of Republicans and those who leaned Republican.

A 2023 Data for Progress survey showed 56% of voters support continuing the DACA program, including 80% of Democrats and 59% of Independents. The survey also found that 61% would support lawmakers in Congress passing a bill to ensure DACA recipients have the opportunity to gain U.S. citizenship. This includes 79% of Democrats and 64% of Independents.

But here’s the problem: Labrador is right; this group of immigrants does not have legal status in the United States and, by law, can’t qualify for health care subsidies.

We can’t and shouldn’t simply look the other way when it comes to following the law. Just as we shouldn’t simply look the other way when President Trump diverted billions of taxpayer dollars without congressional authorization to build a wall at the southern border, we shouldn’t look the other way here.

The law is the law.

Unfortunately, the one body that can fix it, Congress, has done nothing about it for the past decade.

Perhaps legal status for DACA recipients was part of the bipartisan bill that then-candidate Trump told Republican senators to kill earlier this year so that President Joe Biden wouldn’t score a victory.

Who knows? But it shows that if you’re waiting for comprehensive immigration reform, don’t hold your breath.

Providing legal status to DACA recipients should be low-hanging fruit and should be done separately and quickly.

Once again, we call on Idaho’s congressional delegation, Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Reps. Russ Fulcher and especially Mike Simpson, to do the right thing and push for legal status for DACA recipients.

Dragging this out is nothing short of cruel and immoral.