On Tuesday, September 5th , Donald Trump advanced his immigration war against Mexico by a quantum leap: He ordered the termination of former President Obama’s 2012 executive order which had provided protection to 800 000 youngsters who had been brought by their undocumented parents to the United States as small children – typically between the ages of 2 to 4 years. Of them, 693 000 are from Mexico and have lived exemplary lives studying and working as valued members of U.S. society. They now will be brutally uprooted and deported back to Mexico, a country which seems distant to them and with which they have fewer emotional bonds than they have with the United States. Rather than face the nation with his nefarious order, Trump cowardly had Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, make the announcement – and even more cowardly, he passed off his responsibility to the U.S. Congress. According to his plan, Congress now has 6 months until the 5th of March 2018 to pass legislation to convert the DACA decree of Obama into a Federal Law. If Congress fails to do so, massive deportations will begin, which in our case means that during a period of no more than 2 years, Mexico will have to absorb the influx of 7 000 returnees per week! Although the Undersecretary for North America in the S.R.E., Manuel Sada Solana valiantly stated that Mexico will welcome all 693 000 with open arms, provide employment agency services, provide youth credits and eliminate unnecessary administrative processes as well as immediate re-validation of studies in the U.S., that is hardly a reassuring Plan B if we consider that our economy is not even able to offer jobs to all of the one million young people looking for work every year under normal circumstances! Since all of the unfortunate “Dreamers” had to register with federal authorities to obtain the benefits of DACA, and reveal all of their personal data as well as the complete data of family members, the authorities now know where they are – and unable to hide - they will be easy prey for the roaming squads of the “Migra”. So the question arises: Is there a realistic chance of Congress passing anything that could still protect the Dreamers? The answer, cruelly, has to be that there is not even a remote chance: All of the protective principles of DACA had once been enshrined in a legislative proposal in 2001 in a Congressional Bill called the Dream Act and it failed to get any legislative approval in 2001, in 2007, in 2009, in 2010, in 2011 and when it again failed in 2012, Obama, in a fit of frustration decided to force the matter by means of an executive order. This is the order which Trump has now destroyed and, according to the Cato Institute conservative think tank, his incredible shortsightedness will cost the U.S. federal government 60 billion Dollars in lost tax revenue and decrease economic growth by 280 billion Dollars over the next 10 years! But we have to go further, probably this is a political strategy of Trump to press the negotiations of the NAFTA and use it like a powerful currency of exchange to obtain great benefits. In that sense, our country should not be intimidated by such action; on the contrary, we must separate the political issues from the commercial and focus on resolving the third round of NAFTA negotiations. Again, we are victims of Trump's bargaining po
