How Harvey Helps DACA

Pesident Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama Administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, finally acting after months of on-again, off-again threats. DACA's termination is the latest expression of the incoherence of American immigration policy. The program began as an Obama Administration effort to regularize the status of undocumented immigrants who had grown up in the United States, then morphed into an identity-politics effort to rule by decree, which in turn led to a nativist backlash that helped elect Trump. Meanwhile, Hurricane Harvey, which will require massive numbers of immigrant construction workers for reconstruction, has just jolted the underlying assumptions of immigration policy. The politics of purity—on both sides—needs to give way to a continuation of DACA and a realistic Harvey visa waiver program.