Don’t Blame Trump

I am just about as “live and let live” as it gets. If Hugo Nicolas and another couple million DACA folks stay or leave, it probably won’t affect me one way or another (“Dream Chaser,” 2/8). I likely won’t notice whatever financial impact it has on the country.

But may I quote Barack Obama? In 2010, specifically regarding immigration reforms, he said, “I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself.”

And in 2011, Obama said that with “respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case.” In May 2011, he acknowledged that he couldn’t “just bypass Congress and change the [immigration] law myself … That’s not how a democracy works.”

Do we have immigration laws or not? Do we have a Constitution or not? If Hugo gets deported, don’t blame Trump — he didn’t make a bad situation worse by getting millions of people’s hopes up.

Brian Palmer

Eugene