Words Matter Tonight - "Wall" "Shut Down", "DACA DREAMERS"

By Margaret Sands Orchowski

Tonight is the State of the Union speech. AS a credentialed Congressional journalist I will be joining my colleagues in the press gallery in Congress to hear President Trump's take on how our government and our country is doing,  

We inked stained wretches in the press gallery will be closely following the written copies of his speech given to us just minutes before we enter the chamber on the third floor balcony above the speaker's podium.  We will be watching how closely the President follows the text.   FYI: Last year, did not deviate one word from the written text, same as President Obama  before him.

The actual words the President uses matters crucially. Some like the "wall" and DREAMERS are particularly fraught and have been roiling politics for the past months.  Many have been spun by politicians and the press almost beyond recognition.  Here are some words to watch out for -- not only the word but the context.

"WALL" Will Trump refer specifically to building a border WALL meaning a physical concrete structure?  Or will he refer to it as a "BARRIER" which combines a wide variety of air and digital technology, boots on the ground including U.S. military and new detention processes.  The word FENCE has come to mean an inferior border marker, that recently both Democrats and Republicans use mockingly.

"GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN" It will be interesting if President Trump mentions "government shut down" in his SOTU speech and how he refers to it – as something that should not happen again, as a given or as a threat.  The next deadline for a full budget agreement for the U.S. government is March 22. If no agreement is reached by then, agencies not funded and will need to "shut down" until they are funded.

The term "shut down" itself has been badly spun in the media. Few journalists refer to the just past shut down over the holidays as "partial".  In fact it involved just 25 percent of government agencies; the other 75% were already fully funded and operational.  Government workers deemed "non-essential" (including flower bouquet professionals at the White House) were furloughed – were told not to come to work; other essential workers – almost 90 percent of the Homeland Security Dept. for instance, were ordered to work but did not receive their first mid-month checks.  Most government workers are dedicated and went to work "without pay' fully conscioius that they would receive full back pay once the shut down is over – something few laid-off or cut-back workers in the private sector can count on.

The most interesting "playing chip" word we will be listening for in the President's speech is DREAMERs and DACA.  THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE between the two – not only in their fact but particularly in the numbers of people involved.  It's not clear if the President or even most of the press are aware of the differences.  Almost all don't even get the basic definition right.  For the record here is a clarification. 

DREAMERS refer to a population of illegal immigrants almost always defined by the press as "young people brought to the country illegally by their parents".  Since 2007 various "Dream Acts" have failed to pass that would give legalization or at least some kind of protected stay for this population. In 2012, President Obama issued an executive order (DACA – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) to protect qualified DREAMERs (they had to apply and be vetted individually) from deportation for two years and to grant them a temporary work permit.

The problem is that not one of those words in the default definition above appear in either President Obama's three-page 2012 "DACA" order nor in any of the 15-to-20 page Dream Act proposals yet-to-be-passed.  The basic description in all DACA/DREAMER documents is: anyone who "CAME INTO THE UNITED STATES BEFORE THE AGE OF 16".  In the Dream Act of 2017 proposal – now being pushed by Democrats and Republican Lindsey Graham (SC) the age is pushed up to 18.

There are currently 690,000 DACA beneficiaries.  In 2017,President Trump rescinded the DACA order giving them protection from deportation, but a federal court blocked it. Now the order now awaits a ruling by the Supreme Court about its constitutionality.  But be clear.  When anyone refers to including DACAs in a compromise about "the wall", they are talking about some 700,000 individuals.

DREAMERS on the other hand constitute some 1.8 million potential illegal immigrants who came into the country before the age of 16.  President Trump offered to legalize those in a compromise deal in 2018.

The Democrats came back with a revised Dream Act proposal that raised the age of entry to 18 plus a possible inclusion of DREAMERS' parents.  Those potential DREAMERS would number 4 million.

So what will President Trump refer to in his speech tonight, if any?  700,000 DACAs?  1.8 million or 4 million DREAMERS?  Will the press distinguish between them?  Does the President even know? 

Well at least now you readers should know.

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