Broad immigration deal may be unlikely, but can’t all agree to protect DACA youth?

The complexity of immigration issues is hard to exaggerate. On one hand, Donald Trump promises to immediately deport tens of thousands of people a week without anything akin to due process if he returns to the White House.

On the other, some of President Joe Biden’s key policies are faulted by many far from the MAGA camp — even if this helps Trump. The list includes big-city Democratic mayors such as New York’s Eric Adams. A broad consensus feels beyond reach.

But this editorial is about a much more limited part of this debate, one that should be considered on its own specifics.

We refer to the utterly cruel treatment of the roughly 600,000 people still living and working in the United States as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Created in 2012 by an executive order from President Barack Obama, it allows many young “dreamers” who were brought to the United States illegally as children to receive work permits and renewable stays of deportation so long as they can show they’re on track to lead constructive lives. The order immediately faced challenges from many states, which used an argument that Obama himself once made: only Congress could create such a program. But while many conservative judges have agreed, the Supreme Court has passed on opportunities to pull the plug — even as it accepted a block on new DACA approvals.

It appears Chief Justice John Roberts hopes that the president and Congress can figure this out without the high court having to clear the way for the deportation of hundreds of thousands of productive young people — many of whom didn’t even realize they were in legal limbo until they had been in the U.S. for a decade-plus, all of whom can’t vote even though they pay taxes.

That is a reasonable hope for those like Roberts who lived through an era in which immigration policies were dominated by pragmatic politicians in both parties. Remember, the only GOP candidate to get more than half the popular vote since 1988 was George W. Bush in 2004, when he ran for re-election while pressing for broad immigration reform.

Now the only thing that most federal lawmakers can agree on is that massive deficit spending is no big deal. Measured immigration views seem rare.

But even in this polarized era, it should be possible to reach agreement in this niche of politics: The callous treatment of these “dreamers” must end.