The fight by Democrats to stop the deportation of about 700,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children and now protected under the DACA program isn’t just an act of compassion. It’s a political power play to win U.S. citizenship for the DACA recipients – known as Dreamers – and turn them into an army of new Democratic voters.

Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of veteran Democratic political operative Jennifer Palmieri, who was the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign.

A memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation that was co-authored by Palmieri states this clearly: “The fight to protect Dreamers is not only a moral imperative, it is also a critical component of the Democratic Party’s future success.”

Not clear enough? The memo also says: “If Democrats don’t try to do everything in their power to defend Dreamers, that will jeopardize Democrats’ electoral chances in 2018 and beyond.”

DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. President Obama created the program by executive order in 2015 to allow children brought to our country illegally by their parents to temporarily remain here if they met certain conditions.

Contending that President Obama had no right to create the program without congressional approval, President Trump wants to end DACA in March unless Congress enacts legislation to preserve it. The president insists that funding for improved border security and a wall across our southern border must be part of any legislation to keep DACA alive.

Palmieri co-wrote the Democratic strategy memo for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. While the group calls itself “an independent nonpartisan policy institute and advocacy organization” just a quick look at the fund’s website shows it is devoted to attacking President Trump and Republicans.

In their desperation to turn the so-called Dreamers into Democratic voters, we saw Democrats fake indignation over claims that President Trump used a vulgar expression Thursday to describe certain countries in a closed-door meeting. The claim has been disputed by the president as well as two senators who were in the meeting.

Unlike the televised meeting between President Trump and a larger group of lawmakers a few days earlier, the Thursday meeting where the vulgar language was purportedly used was private, so only the people who were there know what was really said.

We haven’t seen people this up in arms over the use of a word since President Clinton forced the country to debate the definition of the word “is” when discussing his sexual misconduct with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

During his televised meeting with lawmakers, President Trump made it clear that he was very willing to work with Democrats on immigration reform – particularly on the extension of DACA – in exchange for a border wall and ending both chain migration and the diversity lottery program that grants visas to 55,000 people each year from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S.

By all accounts it seemed to be an amicable meeting. Even Sen. Lindsey “amnesty” Graham, R-S.C., acted as though he wanted to work with the president.

But once the cameras were off it was business as usual. The Democrats’ idea of working together in a bipartisan way is for Republicans to roll over and cave in to just about every Democratic demand, while Democrats give up virtually nothing.

Without a deal to their liking, Democrats would abide by the Palmieri memo and make DACA a campaign issue for the 2018 midterm elections. It appears this is exactly what will happen.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., negotiated a proposed extension of the DACA program with pro-amnesty Republicans. They threw in a path to citizenship and proposed letting recipients sponsor relatives and parents to live in the U.S. for renewable three-year periods. Their deal would increase chain migration instead of ending it, and only allocated $1.6 billion for the construction of a border wall or fence that will cost $20 billion or more.

When Senators Durbin and Graham walked into the Oval Office, excited to offer President Trump virtually nothing he had asked for, did they think he wouldn’t notice? You can’t blame President Trump – a master dealmaker – for turning down that offer.

Durbin quickly set out to change the narrative. Democrats think if they can just fake moral outrage, get everyone to believe the president used the word “s---hole,” spin whatever was said out of context and accuse President Trump of racism they can cause a distraction.

With the majority of the mainstream media on their side to aid and abet them, the Democrats have managed to get the media and many Americans talking about a supposedly racist president instead of a merit-based immigration system, on which the American people largely agree with President Trump.

According to a Pulse Opinion Research poll, 57 percent of likely voters in the November midterm elections favor ending chain migration.

In the movie “Wag the Dog,” the White House fakes a war with the nation of Albania to cover up the president’s extramarital affair. The president’s political consultant, played by Robert De Niro, might as well be advising Durbin: “What difference does it make if it's true? If it's a story and it breaks, they're gonna run with it.” Unfortunately that’s the sorry state of most journalism today.

Durbin has a history of having trouble with the truth when it comes to private White House meetings. According to Politico, in 2013 Durbin wrote on his Facebook page that a GOP House leader told President Obama “I cannot even stand to look at you” during a closed-door negotiation. Then White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said unequivocally that never happened.

No matter, Durbin’s “outrage” was straight out of the Palmieri memo. It’s not about DACA, it’s about winning votes and seats in Congress for Democrats for many years to come. Democrats believe they need this issue because they’re out of ideas.

The clock is ticking on the next election cycle. You can almost smell the fear coming from the Democrats, who’ve spent the last year parading around Washington on their moral high horses, while offering no solutions or ideas. Now they’re scrambling for something to save their seats. They’ve decided that something is DACA.