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Is DACA dead?

While President Donald Trump initially took a hard-line stance against the Obama-era executive order, he’s now left it up to Congress. They have six months to get their own version of DACA passed — or it’ll be repealed without a replacement.

Perhaps it’s just an experiment to see which RINOs will try to save DACA. Given Trump’s past comments noting how devastating amnesty would be for the Republican Party in the long run, he’s clearly not in favor of DACA.

Amnesty is suicide for Republicans.Not one of those 12 million who broke our laws will vote Republican.Obama is laughing at @GOP.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2013

Be weak on immigration and ensure Democratic victory.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2013

At least we’ll know who to vote out in the event Republicans do try to pass their own DACA-light. It’ll truly be sickening if they can pass a law that tightens a noose around the neck of the Republican Party — but not the Obamacare repeal they promised.

If Republicans are pressured by fear-mongering, it won’t be just from the left. Among those supposedly on the political right fighting for DACA is the libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute. They say eliminating DACA will impose a massive cost on American businesses.

According to the talking points from their most recent “research” on DACA:

> DACA rescission will cost employers $6.3 billion in employee turnover costs, including recruiting, hiring, and training 720,000 new employees.

> Every week for the next two years, U.S. employers will have to terminate 6,914 employees who currently participate in DACA at a weekly cost of $61 million.

> Ending DACA would be the equivalent of 31 “major” regulations.

Six billion, three hundred million dollars over a year sure sounds like a lot.

And it is — just not spread across American businesses as a whole. Remember, we live in a $20 trillion economy. That’s 20,000 billions!

To give some perspective on just how little impact the $6.3 billion will have on the businesses who have already benefited from cheap labor thanks to DACA, that only comes out to roughly $230 per business employing workers through DACA.

With such a hot-button issue, having an accurate picture of the problem is essential.

[Note: This post was written by Matt Palumbo. He is a co-author of the new book A Paradoxical Alliance: Islam and the Left, and can be found on Twitter @MattPalumbo12]