How the Tillis-Sinema immigration bill would right two glaring wrongs

Lame-duck sessions of Congress are often regarded with an indifference befitting an afterthought, the tidying up of mostly minor matters. The current session, however, could begin rehabilitating the government’s reputation by, with a single bipartisan stroke, righting two glaring wrongs that large American majorities recognize as such. They are the insecure southern border. And the decades-long callousness toward those called “dreamers.”

The 2 million of them were under age 16 when brought here by parents who were not lawfully here. They have lived under threat of deportation from the only country they have known, their insecurity underscored by their exclusion from federal and state privileges to which they would have access if, having been born here, they were citizens.

President Barack Obama’s morally admirable but constitutionally dubious 2012 fiat (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) gave dreamers temporary but renewable legal status and work authorization. President Donald Trump rescinded DACA in 2017, calling it executive overreach, something he understood from indulging in it. Now, however, two senators, Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), propose legislation providing, inter alia, tens of billions of dollars for enhanced border security, and for prompt processing of asylum requests (most of which are denied). And, for dreamers, a 10-year — hardly hurried — path to citizenship.

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