Dreamers to stay — for now

President Trump has broken his campaign promise to “immediately terminate” an Obamaera program to shield from deportation an estimated 750,000 immigrants who were brought here as children.

Trump’s decision to allow the Dreamers to stay in the United States is welcome but not necessarily permanent. White House officials suggested Friday that the program created by President Barack Obama’s 2012 executive order remained subject to further review.

As a candidate, Trump had called the program, formally known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an “unconstitutional executive amnesty.” As president, however, Trump has expressed a more sympathetic view toward the Dreamers, and his administration never stopped processing renewal applications. Even so, some Dreamers have been deported, most notably 23year-old Juan Manuel Montes, who had lived in the U.S. since age 9 and had an active DACA permit.

The treatment of Dreamers is an area of immigration law where Americans should be able to find common ground regardless of where they stand on border enforcement or the pathway to reform. These are immigrants who arrived here before age 16, and in many cases much younger, and have not been convicted of multiple or serious crimes. They can apply for protected status at age 15.

In many cases, they have attended American schools and have little or no recollection of living in the country from which their parents brought them.

Their fate should not be at the whims of the president. Congress should act to make the program permanent.