A June 18 DHS press release, “Alleged Ringleader of UFC Terrorist Plot is a Mexican Illegal Alien”, reports that Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez (the alien in question), was arrested in Nebraska for his role in a purported plot “to carry out a mass-casualty attack against government officials and other attendees” during an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House on Sunday. Subsequent reports claim Alvarez, 31, entered on a tourist visa with his family in 2001, but received quasi-status under the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Apparently, not all “DACAs” are honors students — at least not if the government’s allegations are true.
DACA
For more than two decades, congressmen from both sides have tried to pass some form of “DREAM Act”, that is, an amnesty for aliens living in the United States illegally after arriving here — with and without their parents — as children.
And for nearly a quarter century, they’ve been unsuccessful, and regardless of how it turns out, this case is unlikely to further their cause.
The failure of DREAM Act legislation led the Obama administration to create DACA, which provides quasi-legal status to aliens who entered the United States while under the age of 16 before June 15, 2007, who were born after June 15, 1981, who meet certain educational standards, and who have not been convicted of certain crimes.
DACA was not created by Congress, or even by executive order or executive action, for that matter. Instead, it’s the product of a memo issued by then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano on June 15, 2012 (five months before that year’s presidential elections), that has become a political football ever since.
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