Concurrent with releasing his immigration platform, presidential candidate Donald Trump was interviewed by Chuck Todd, NBC political analyst and host of "Meet the Press".
Why exactly Todd was chosen is a mystery, at least to me. The quick give-and-take on Trump's plane, which accompanied the full interview, was less than impressive and Todd's knowledge of immigration matters can clearly be put into a walnut shell with plenty of room left over for the nut. Todd's own views were on full display during that bout, but that's to be expected from the mouthpiece of a liberal media outlet.
CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian and Fellow David North have already commented on some of the plan; many more comments will no doubt follow.
I only wish to raise one thing, and that is Trump's stated intention to rescind the irresponsible Obama executive action program known as "DACA" (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). If I had one piece of advice for him, were he to become president, it would be: Don't!
Focus all of your efforts instead on rescinding anything and everything that isn't the subject of a court challenge — all of the things for which no one ever managed to gain enough purchase with their lawsuits to achieve that nebulous, but all-important, thing called "standing to sue". Put the "prosecutorial discretion" memos that block agents from arresting broad swaths of the illegal alien population into the trash bin where they belong. Undo the nonexistent enforcement "priorities" that are designed to ensure that nothing effective is done, and which are responsible for the release of tens of thousands of criminals.
But leave DACA and its parallel, but never initiated, DAPA program to twist in the winds of the legal system. It's not like they can go forward since there is a restraining order against them. If you rescind these programs, you will essentially render them moot and the courts will in short order toss the lawsuits out as no longer deserving of scarce judicial time and attention. This would leave the Democrats in a position to claim in perpetuity that this president and his cabinet didn't violate the law or Constitution because no court will have issued a final ruling to that effect.
More importantly, without such a final judgment, it leaves future administrations to go down the same path should they choose. That's too great a risk to take.
There is every reason to think that the courts are going to rule against the administration; they did at the district court level, they did at the first go-round in the appellate review, and the panel that refused to grant an emergency stay of the district court's ruling is the very same panel that will entertain the hearing in chief. Whatever you do, don't cut the legs out from under this important legal decision in the making.
Besides, in the unlikely event the courts rule in favor of the legality of the programs (which doesn't seem likely at this point), you can take a page from the playbook of this disingenuous administration and jettison them then.