Mexico’s government got indignant when the Trump administration announced in September it is planning to end DACA.
Ambassador Geronimo Gutierrez “profoundly lamented” the decision in a statement last month and said Mexico would push for a legalization of the so-called “dreamers” while supporting Mexican dreamers via its consulates. Arrangements were made to provide legal counsel for Mexican recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
All of which, to me, was kind of weird. Mexico’s dreamers — people who were brought to the United States illegally as children but have lived here with a good record since then — represent a profound failure of the Mexican government and society. They are a sign of a country that could not provide for its people, who fled to the United States even though they had children in tow.
To receive deferred action, up until the Trump administration ended enrollment in the program, a person must have:
- • Entered the country before turning 16;
- • Lived in the U.S. continuously from June 15, 2007 to June 15, 2012;
- • Completed high school or been an honorably discharged service member;
- • Not been convicted of a felony or significant misdemeanor.
About 800,000 people have received the status, and about 75 percent of them are from Mexico.
To argue that these Mexican migrants, so deserving of sympathy, should stay away from their native country and take up permanent residence in the United States was an admission that Mexico has nothing for them.
Now, Mexico’s rhetoric has changed. Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray, in a speech to Mexico’s senate this week, repeated a line he has been using: “For every dreamer who returns to Mexico, Mexico wins. For every dreamer who leaves the United States, the United States loses.”
He elaborated: “It is not just a privilege for Mexico but a big opportunity that we should have returning talented young people with a clean record, who have received higher education in topics such as computer science, engineering, medicine, accounting, history and law.”
This is the argument about dreamers that works — that they are people who are an asset to be fought over, not an obligation for the United States to assume.
Tatum leaves TPD
For two weeks, I’ve told the tale of Brandon Tatum, a Tucson police officer turned online video star who gives spontaneous political monologues, largely in support of President Trump.
Two weeks ago, he said wrongly that I was trying to get him fired. This week, he quit on his own.
Tatum, also a former UA football player, said in a video that he was offered a job by Liftable Media, which is based in the Phoenix area. He said he will serve as a spokesman for an online site called Conservative Tribune and that he plans to move to Phoenix.
A fan of conspiracy-monger Alex Jones, Tatum said: “We’re going to show the world what media should look like.”
LD9 Senate candidates
Former state Rep. Victoria Steele has announced she will be running next year for the state Senate seat that Steve Farley is vacating to run for governor.
Steele stepped down last year as a state representative from Legislative District 9, which covers the Catalina Foothills and parts of central Tucson, to run for U.S. House. She lost in that Democratic primary to Matt Heinz, who lost in the general election to Rep. Martha McSally, a Republican.
Fellow Democrat Jim Love is also running for the nomination in LD 9. Love is a longtime Flowing Wells school board member who told me he’s running because he has been working on bills in the state Legislature for several years and thought he could do well serving there.
No Republican has as yet filed to run for the seat.
Gosar family feud
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, a Flagstaff Republican, stunned some of the public when he told a Vice News interviewer last week that he believed financier George Soros was behind the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va., and that Soros had turned in fellow Jews when the Nazis ran his native Hungary. Soros was 14 when the Germans surrendered and left Hungary.
It turns out Gosar stunned his family, too.
The Arizona Republic reported Thursday that Gosar’s brother, David, who is a Wyoming lawyer, became so incensed with Rep. Gosar’s comments that he offered to represent a woman suing Gosar. J’aime Morgaine had been suing Gosar over the fact that he blocked her from viewing his posts on Facebook.
The two settled the suit, with Gosar opening up his Facebook page to all comers, before David Gosar could get involved.
