To fix DACA, remember how the DREAM Act died

Now that President Trump has handed Congress the fate of nearly 1 million illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors, a key question is whether lawmakers can resolve the issues that killed the bill that would have spared them this legal limbo.

Every failure of major immigration legislation for the past dozen years can be explained by a past failure. "Comprehensive immigration reform" is a nonstarter for many conservatives because the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act did not deliver on its enforcement promises and did not reduce illegal immigration. (There's a reason people still boast of the tax reform passed 31 years ago but seldom tout that year's immigration reform.)

Similarly, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is literally the product of Congress' inability to pass he DREAM Act.

Former President Barack Obama initially sought to build support for immigration reforms that would legalize most of the illegal immigrants already in the country by trying to demonstrate his commitment to enforcement by citing a high number of deportations.

While immigration hawks remained dissatisfied because the removal numbers were misleading (a Google search for "Obama cooked the books deportations" produces over 2.7 million results), liberal activists disliked their president being perceived as the "deporter-in-chief."