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Regarding President Trump’s decision on DACA, several points:

The program, imposed by Barack Obama through executive fiat, is constitutionally dubious. The manner in which Obama chose to pursue it also made undoing his handiwork that much easier. This ought to serve as a lesson to partisans on both sides of the aisle that there is no good substitute for following the rule of law.

Procedural issues aside, the program is meritorious. Even many immigration hawks admit that the children shielded by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are not scofflaws. They were brought to the United States by their parents or other adults, and many have lived here so long they have no memory of any other country.

The DACA beneficiaries are not scofflaws in another sense as well. Despite scaremongering about immigrants and crime, the Dreamers protected by DACA commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. (The same is true for immigrants generally, as well as for undocumented immigrants.) Indeed, many Dreamers are accomplished young individuals whose continued presence would only enrich the U.S.