Do we have a DACA agreement? Only time will tell if our pols can work

I stumbled across an item Thursday on the Internet saying that President Donald J. Trump DID come to an agreement on the fate of those young people brought into this country without valid visas when they were children.

Will the fight prevail?

Trump, it seems, is willing to let them stay in the United States, provided that THEY do the actual labor of erecting the border wall along the U.S./Mexico boundary that the president has long pledged to his ideological nitwit backers.

OBVIOUSLY, THAT IS parody. But in some ways, it sounds like the kind of absurd line of logic that prevails whenever anything related to federal immigration policy or our nation’s relations with Latin American nations comes up in discussion.

This rhetoric got stepped up in recent days when the leaders of the Democratic caucuses said THEY had reached agreement with Trump to get him to back off of talk that the people who have only been in this country because of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program will not face deportation come next year.

That program is the Barack Obama initiative that was meant to make it possible for these young people who have lived the bulk of their lives in the United States to continue to exist here openly and contribute to our society.

But Trump said about a month ago that he wants to do away with DACA because, of course, it was an Obama initiative. And that makes it very bad, particularly in the minds of the xenophobic twits amongst us who think that immigration policy reform ought to solely be an increase in the number of deportations of non-Anglo individuals.

Have Pelosi and Schumer ...

SO I HAVE no doubt that those people are not grossly offended by the thought that Trump would even contemplate anything other than deportation. Because what they’re hoping for is the six-month time period for Congress to address the issue to pass with nothing happening – thereby making deportations inevitable!

It’s also why I’m not surprised that Trump, himself, is now saying he has NO DEAL with Democrats on this issue. Trying to make it seem that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are telling tall tales (if not outright lying) in saying that a deal has been reached.

Yet the Pelosi/Schumer talk has too much detail too it to be mere exaggeration or wishful thinking.

... seriously reached a DACA deal with Trump?

Whereas even the Republican political opposition talk in response has a bearing of truth – in that GOPers are saying that Congress will have to approve any deal before it can take effect.

MEANING THAT IT could easily be rejected by the same majority-Republican Congress that went out of its way to ignore serious immigration reform efforts all throughout the Barack Obama presidency.

Which is why I’m sure the ideologues amongst us probably fantasize about some version of the parody blurb I alluded to – that the young people wishing to remain in the country they call home will be put to work as laborers.

Just as how some of those same ideologues like to claim all these “foreigners” coming to this country are really hurting the U.S. black population – taking away jobs they could be doing.

As though their vision of our society is one where black people are still picking cotton and doing other hard labor for the economic benefit of the remainder of society.

WHICH IS AN outlandish concept for our modern-day society, if not an offensive one. How could anyone seriously have such a thought bopping about in their brains?

TRUMP: What does he really think?

Then again, the debate over immigration manages to bring out the worst in some of us, and the desperate and outlandish sides of many of us.

So as to the question of “Do we have a DACA agreement?,” I can’t even begin to offer an answer that would be anything other than a wild guess.

We can only hope that sense and decency prevail. Although in this Age of Trump, there are those to whom absurdity and offensive behavior is their wildest dream come true.

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Kentucky vs. Rahm – whose “victory” was likely more predictable?

Which storyline is more likely to be remembered for time to come – the near victory of Notre Dame over Kentucky in the NCAA men’s basketball tourney or the possibility that next week, mayoral challenger Jesus Garcia will come close to beating up on Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Election Day.


I say possibility because we don’t know for sure at this time how Emanuel will do come April 7. Will his political operation turn so many people off to the concept of “Mayor Chuy” that they turn out to vote for Rahm?


OR CAN GARCIA pull off a political upset that would likely be a bigger story than when Harold Washington managed to win the mayoral elections back in 1983?

My gut feeling says it won’t happen, and we’re likely to get “Four more years!” of “Mayor Emanuel,” just like in the end it was totally predictable that Kentucky (the number 1-ranked school in the tourney) beat the Fighting Irish squad that some people want to believe had no business being on the court Saturday night against the Wildcats.

But if Notre Dame had managed to hold on to the lead they had in the second half, or for that matter had not managed to let Kentucky take the lead with just a few seconds left (it was 66-66) – you just know there are Fighting Irish sports fans who will dream forevermore about “What could have been” if Notre Dame had won, and advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Division I tournament.

Somehow, I suspect that following next week’s Election Day, Garcia will slink back to his post on the Cook County Board (his current term runs through 2018) and only the hardest-core of political geeks will bother to remember his mayoral bid.

PART OF WHAT discourages me about the idea of a Garcia bid succeeding – even though I don’t doubt the sincerity of the segment of Chicago’s population that absolutely detests Emanuel – is the sight of 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti feeling the need to endorse Hizzoner.

This comes following four years of Fioretti being the most outspoken critic of Emanuel on the City Council. This man spent the past four years finding just about every excuse he could think of to trash Emanuel’s professional reputation.

But the thought of Garcia as mayor supposedly is what it takes to make Fioretti think twice about Rahm and come to the conclusion that maybe he’s “ready and able to take on the tough financial challenges this city faces.”

It plays off the idea that, somehow, Garcia just isn’t capable of overseeing municipal government. Even though he is a former alderman (just like Fioretti) and, state senator, along with current county board member, none of those three decades of public service have taught him much of anything.

NOW I’M NOT going to come out and say this is some sort of ethnic hang-up; as though would-be voters simply think a “foreign” (born in Mexico, but lived the bulk of his life right here in Chicago) guy is naturally less qualified. But it does seem to be an element of the debate.

There is something about the tone of these claims that Chuy isn’t up to the task that seems reminiscent of the way certain people used to talk about why they didn’t like the idea of “Mayor Harold Washington” – but didn’t want it attributed to “racial” hang-ups.

He just didn’t have the kind of background they desired, even though Washington was just as much a part of the Chicago political organization as anybody else. Just as is Garcia!

Of course, there’s also the fact that the Democratic Party is (has been for a couple of decades, since the days of President Bill Clinton) in its own fight for its character. It’s the ‘60s activists grown older versus the activists grown up – as in having outgrown their cantankerous character and now expressing a desire to be the establishment.

THAT IS A good part of why the retirement in two years of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will result in Number Two Democrat Richard Durbin, D-Ill., (he who bad-mouthed Walgreen’s) being passed over for the leadership post for Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. – who is perceived as being more sympathetic to “Wall Street” types.

Just as I’m sure those who say Garcia isn’t qualified to be mayor are really saying they define “qualifications” as being more like Emanuel. It is why it is likely that a Garcia near-victory next week will be written off as nothing more than a loss to soon be forgotten and the masses will go back to thinking that “Chewy” is a Star Wars character.

Unlike the Notre Dame near-victory that some people will never want to forget about. After all, just think of how crushed country singer Ashley Judd (a prominent Kentucky basketball fan) would have been if the Fighting Irish had actually won?

I can’t envision anyone (not even Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, an outspoken Rahm-basher) getting that worked up if Emanuel wins.

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