誰偷走了他們的“美國夢”
If you work hard and play by the rules, you will move up. That is the gist of the American dream. In Donald Trump’s view, however, hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers” who arrived as undocumented children were breaking the rules. Roughly two-thirds of Americans disagree, including virtually every business leader of note and many leading Republicans. If Congress fails to protect the Dreamers, President Trump can blame them. The buck never stops at Mr Trump’s desk.
He has given Capitol Hill six months to agree on what it has been unable to do in more than 30 years: pass an immigration reform bill. After that, most Dreamers will be at fate’s mercy. The odds that this Congress, which has had the least productive first eight months of any in US history, will do so are slim. No big reform is likely without White House support. In theory, Mr Trump is neutral on whether it should legalise the Dreamers, or kick them out of the country. In reality he is in favour of deportation. He just wants others to press the eject button.
他給了國會六個月時間，就如下這件國會三十多年都未能做成的事情達成一致：通過一項移民改革法案。在那之後，大多數“夢想者”就只能聽天由命了。本屆國會前八個月的工作堪稱美國史上最低效，它用六個月通過這一法案的可能性很小。沒有白宮的支持，任何重大改革都不太可能實現。理論上，在白宮該給這些“夢想者”合法身份還是該將他們趕出美國的問題上，特朗普是中立的。實際上，他支持將他們驅逐出境。他只是想讓別人按下“驅逐”按鈕。The move is quintessential Trump on many levels. First, his reasoning is typically garbled. All of a sudden Mr Trump believes in constitutional limits to his power. Barack Obama offered a reprieve to the Dreamers by executive order, thus supposedly trampling on Congress’s turf. But that interpretation is by no means clear-cut. Other scholars say presidents have the right to interpret how to enforce the law. Mr Obama simply rolled out a “deferred action” on one type of illegal immigrant — children brought to the US by their parents, typically around the age of six.
從許多層面上看，這都是典型的特朗普式做法。首先，他邏輯混亂。突然間，特朗普相信起憲法對總統行政權的限制了。巴拉克?奧巴馬(Barack Obama)以行政命令的方式讓“夢想者”暫時免於被驅逐，因而理論上侵犯了國會的地盤。但這種解讀根本不嚴密。一些學者稱，總統有權解釋如何執行法律。奧巴馬只是針對一種類型的非法移民——通常在六歲左右被父母帶至美國的兒童——推出了一項“暫緩遣返行動”(deferred action)。
Even if the courts rejected special treatment for Dreamers, Mr Trump has a history of giving judges the middle finger. That was his response to the various courts that ruled against his “Muslim ban” on travellers from six Muslim-majority nations earlier this year. He is appealing against them to the Supreme Court. When it comes to the fate of the Dreamers, however, Mr Trump is a paragon of executive modesty. His move seems even odder 10 days after he stretched the limits of presidential clemency to pardon Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff who was convicted of racial profiling.
即便法院拒絕爲“夢想者”提供特殊待遇，特朗普也不是沒有對法官亮過中指。今年早些時候多家法院否決特朗普“禁穆令”（針對六個穆斯林佔多數國家的旅行者）的時候，他就是這樣迴應的。他正在向最高法院提出上訴。然而，到了關係“夢想者”命運的事情上，特朗普卻變成了剋制總統行政權的典範。讓他的這一舉動更顯奇怪的是，10天前，他還以考驗總統特赦權限度的方式，赦免了因種族貌相(racial profiling)而被定罪的亞利桑那州前警長喬?阿爾帕約(Joe Arpaio)。So much for the law. Then there is Mr Trump’s odd economics. Much as he would love to help the Dreamers, his first duty is to help the “the unemployed, struggling and forgotten Americans”. African Americans, in particular, are victims of illegal immigration, says the White House. Here Mr Trump is falling for the lump of labour fallacy, which assumes the economy has a fixed number of jobs. If America deports 800,000 people, the thinking goes, the same number of jobs will open up.
由此可見，他關於尊重法律的理由站不住腳。此外，特朗普的經濟盤算也很奇怪。儘管他很樂意幫助“夢想者”，但他的首要職責是幫助那些“沒有工作、身處困境、被遺忘的美國人”。白宮表示，非洲裔美國人受非法移民的衝擊尤其嚴重。在這裏，特朗普犯了“勞動總量固定”的錯誤——假定美國經濟中只有固定數量的就業機會。這種思維認爲，如果美國驅逐80萬人出境，同樣數量的工作崗位就將空出來。It is untrue of course. It is also hypocritical. Mr Trump seems only to remember “forgotten Americans” when they serve as rhetorical victims of other groups. Though the president is neutral on what happens to the Dreamers, he supports a bill that would halve legal immigration to America.
這當然是假的，也很虛僞。當特朗普說到受其他族羣衝擊的美國人時，他記得的似乎只是“被遺忘的美國人”。儘管特朗普對“夢想者”的遭遇持中立態度，但他支持一項將進入美國的合法移民數量減半的法案。But the most visceral target of President Trump’s action is Mr Obama. By helping the Dreamers, Mr Obama had violated “the core tenets that sustain our republic”, Mr Trump said. In so arguing, Mr Trump did not just misportray the American creed. He nullified it. But that may well be an afterthought. The thread that links Mr Trump’s actions since taking office is his obsession with undoing all of his predecessor’s legacy.
但是，特朗普此舉最終目標是奧巴馬。特朗普表示，通過幫助“夢想者”，奧巴馬違反了“維繫我們這個共和國的核心信條”。特朗普的這種說法不止是歪曲了美國信條——他毀掉了美國信條。但這說法很可能是他事後想出來的。自上任以來，特朗普行爲的主線就是不遺餘力地消除其前任的一切政治遺產。Mr Trump has repeatedly tried to repeal Obamacare — and failed, much to his chagrin. He has reversed Mr Obama’s partial opening up to Cuba. He has undone most of Mr Obama’s anti-pollution actions. And he has pulled the US out of the Paris deal on global warming. Dreamers were always on his hit list. Even where Mr Trump has continued Mr Obama’s policies, notably on Afghanistan, he presented it as a departure. Anyone hoping Mr Obama’s landmark Iran nuclear deal will survive Mr Trump’s first year should take note. It is in his sights. The same applies to Mr Obama’s US-South Korea trade deal.
特朗普已多次試圖廢除“奧巴馬醫改”(Obamacare)，又多次失敗——令他惱火不已。他推翻了奧巴馬政府對古巴部分放開的政策。他取消了奧巴馬的大部分反污染行動。他還讓美國退出瞭解決全球變暖問題的《巴黎協定》。“夢想者”一直就在他的打擊名單上。即便在繼續推行奧巴馬政策的領域——主要是阿富汗問題——他也採用了“新戰略”這樣的表述。寄望於奧巴馬具有里程碑意義的伊朗核協議能挺過特朗普上任第一年的人們都應注意了。該協議在他的目標名單上。奧巴馬的美韓貿易協定也是一樣。Can Mr Trump ever forgive Mr Obama? It may be too much to expect. Mr Trump is like Captain Ahab on a never-ending hunt. Unlike Ahab’s whale, however, Mr Obama cannot be harpooned. Mr Trump essentially launched his political career in 2011 when he accused Mr Obama of faking his birth certificate. He was rightly mocked for alleging Mr Obama was born in Africa.
特朗普能饒過奧巴馬嗎？或許不能。特朗普就像一心捕殺大白鯨的亞哈船長(Captain Ahab)。然而，不同於亞哈追捕的鯨魚，奧巴馬不能被魚叉擒住。特朗普真正開啓自己的政治生涯就是在2011年，當時他指控奧巴馬僞造出生證明。由於斷言奧巴馬出生與非洲，特朗普理所當然地受到了嘲諷。Long before Mr Trump thought of the Dreamers, Mr Obama was his original illegal immigrant. It is hard to forget how well Mr Obama ridiculed him for having spread the mother of all fake news stories. Innocents are still paying the price for Mr Trump’s humiliation.
在特朗普想到“夢想者”很久之前，他最初想到的非法移民就是奧巴馬。很難忘記奧巴馬當初是如何奚落特朗普傳播了一條假新聞之王的。無辜的人們仍在爲特朗普當初所受的羞辱付出代價。
