Is federal government chaos best protection for those young people with uncertain immigration status?

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly let it be known that young people brought to this country as children by their parents without valid visas shouldn’t feel threatened.

Kelly having to correct  ...

He says such people are not going to be a priority for deportation, regardless of whether or not the legal protections that were offered those individuals during the Barack Obama presidency do wind up disappearing next month due to the actions of President Donald J. Trump.

NOT THAT I believe any individuals who went to the trouble of registering with the federal government under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are going to feel the least bit relieved.

Then again, it could mean the ultimate protection for those young people who have lived the bulk of their lives is the inability of our federal government leadership to figure out what it wants to do.

It could wind up that will hold in check those individuals who seriously thought that a vote for Trump just over a year ago would wind up instant deportation of all these “foreigners” who “don’t belong here.”

That is, of course, when they were not fantasizing about their other “priority” – the instant incarceration of Hillary R. Clinton (remember chants of, “Lock her up!”?).

... his boss, Trump, so often ...

KELLY’S WORDS THIS week to reporter-types in Washington, D.C. that these “dreamers” are “not a priority for deportation” and that those individuals will be left alone so long as they avoid any criminal record and “stay out of anyone’s scope” ought to offer some comfort to those individuals who seriously wonder if the election of an ideologue who doesn’t really have a clue how government works provides a threat to their futures and the lives they’re trying to build.

But then again, it was just over two weeks ago that Kelly told members of Congress that it was likely even Trump knew his constant demands for a physical barrier be built along the U.S./Mexico border were not going to happen.

Only to have Trump himself come back and insist that it was Kelly who didn’t have a clue – and that his demands for a border wall to keep all those dreaded Mexicans out of the United States really was going to happen.

... is a sight we didn't get in the days of Rahm ...

Does this mean that tomorrow’s “story” will be Trump denouncing Kelly for once again speaking on this issue, and that all those young foreigners really are going to face deportation once the DACA protections of the Obama era expire come March 5?

COULD IT BE that this ongoing battle over the fate of a group of young people who really have done everything they can in life to assimilate to this country and merely want a bureaucratic obstacle removed from their path to complete the journey is going to be what keeps the federal government from acting?

Because I don’t believe our Congress is going to come up with a magical solution to this issue by March 5. The courts, thus far, have ruled in ways that would thwart action toward deportation.

Yet there are too many members of Congress who are determined to keep any long-term resolution of the bureaucratic mess that is our federal immigration policy from being reformed.

There are too many people whose ideological hang-ups benefit from a chaotic immigration policy. A real solution is going to include the eventual replacement of Trump as president with someone who wants to look at the issue rationally.

... advising his boss, Obama

WHICH IS A situation I must confess I don’t see occurring anytime soon. I can see a lot more irrationality occurring on the issue of immigration reform before anyone gets willing to be serious.

Until then, the safest bet for those young people whom some are determined to view as the problem (instead of political nonsense) could be the chaos itself – which could prevent any ideologically-motivated actions with long-term consequences.

And one other thought – about how absurd our federal government has become. Can anyone envision former President Obama so often being contracted by his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, for not having a clue?

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Gutierrez offers Kelly an apology, and all it took was the White House chief of staff implying Donald Trump, misspoke

I always take apologies by government officials half-seriously.

GUTIERREZ: A 'lo siento' from 'el Gallito'

They’re usually less-than-sincere, and more motivated by some official’s desire that the public stop talking about something perceived as a gaffe.

RARELY ARE THE officials actually regretful that they said something stupid. They just wish everybody else would agree with them instead of the other guy.

So when I learned that soon-to-be retiring Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., was apologetic Wednesday toward White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, I was skeptical.

Gutierrez, who has used his decades of time in Congress to try to make himself the Voice of Latinos across the nation rather than just in his Latino-enclave district in Chicago, has been critical of Kelly for saying he opposes the demise of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program.

The program is meant to make it possible for young people who came to this country without a valid visa to exist openly in this country. It is a part of the Barack Obama presidential legacy that Donald Trump is most anxious to abolish.

GUTIERREZ HAS SAID that Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, is “a hypocrite,” “mean” and “a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear.”

Ouch!

But on Wednesday, when Kelly met with several members of Congress to discuss the future of DACA and immigration reform, the Chicago politico who has been outspoken since his days as an alderman made a point of publicly apologizing for his past rhetoric.

KELLY: Accepted the apology

The Washington Post reported that Kelly accepted the apology, telling everybody “we all say or do stupid things.” But then later told Gutierrez that the public apology “means a lot.”

NOW MAYBE GUTIERREZ wants to create the impression of being the bigger man in the ongoing immigration debate.

But one also has to consider that at that same meeting with congressmen, many of whom were members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Kelly tried to give the impression that all of his boss, Donald Trump’s, talk about demanding a barrier be erected along the U.S./Mexico border before any talk of immigration reform or DACA preservation could proceed was, to put it simply, cheap.

Now one can argue the cliché “talk is cheap” applies to all government officials.

But Kelly let it be known that, deep down, Trump knows that a border wall along the 1,900-mile stretch of desert separating the two nations is impractical. He even told them they shouldn’t take it too seriously when Trump says he’s going to force Mexico’s government to pay for the barricade that Trump insists will cut off the flow of people headed northbound into the U.S.

TRUMP, OF COURSE, continues to insist he really means it when he makes such threats. In recent days, he has insisted that DACA will die, no matter how much it will hurt young people who have established their lives in this country. And it’s all the Democrats’ fault because they won’t go along with his wall talk.

Kelly, however, said that Trump’s hostile talk during his 2016 presidential campaign was that of an “uninformed” candidate, and that he is learning about the ways of government. It’s that old argument we shouldn’t take Trump too seriously. Which sounds much like the old line about Mayor Richard J. Daley’s inarticulate manner of speaking when they said, “write what (Daley) means, not what he says.”

TRUMP: Who knows what he really means!

Perhaps such talk from Kelly did put Gutierrez in the proper frame of mind to want to say “I’m sorry” to someone who had in the past spoken out against the interests of the people whom Gutierrez sees as his larger constituency.

Or maybe he was just wanting to make sure Kelly didn’t wind up using him as an excuse to later come back and shoot down some immigration deal, just because Gutierrez once felt the need to be critical. Then again, anybody familiar with Chicago politics throughout the years would know Luis didn’t get the nickname of El Gallito (the little rooster) by being meek as a mouse!

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