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The self-declared "law and order" president isnt following the law. Not when it comes to extending legal protections to the undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children, the group known as Dreamers and which includes more than 100,000 young people in Texas alone.

President Donald Trumps administration said Tuesday it will continue rejecting new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which allows these young immigrants to live and work in this country or join the military. This despite a federal court decision in July ordering the administration to resume accepting new applications. The order followed a June 18 U.S. Supreme Court ruling blocking White House efforts to rescind DACA.

Critics seized on the White House move as another attempt to dismantle the program. In announcing it would not take new applications, however, the administration said it would limit renewals for current DACA recipients to one year, rather than typical two-year extensions, while it reviews the Supreme Courts ruling.

Like the Obama administration before it -- it enacted DACA in 2012 via executive memorandum -- the Trump administration is working in a space provided for decades by a Congress unable or unwilling to fix an immigration system most Americans agree isnt working. In that vacuum, the administration is implementing immigration policy by executive order in unprecedented and sweeping scale. A report released Friday by the Migration Policy Institute details how the Trump presidency has put immigration at the forefront of its policy agenda like no previous administration, issuing more than 400 immigration-related executive actions since 2017. These cover everything from the travel ban on visitors from Muslim-majority nations to curbs on legal immigration, deploying military personnel to the border and restricting asylum channels.

Trump is creating immigration policy while the representatives we elect to Congress sit on the sidelines or, worse, use the countrys immigration wars in a calculated political exercise that seems intended to keep this cruel game going in perpetuity. Americans want immigration policy that makes sense, not political gamesmanship.

Polling consistently shows most Americans support extending legal protections to undocumented immigrants brought here as children and who know no other country but this one. They see protections as in line with American values of compassion and rewarding hard work. Unfairly caught up in the countrys cultural wars, these young people are wage earners, taxpayers and contributors to the economy. In Texas, Dreamers eligible for DACA earned more than $3 billion in 2015 and paid more than $470 million in taxes, according to research by the New American Economy think tank. Many have begun professional careers. Nearly half of the almost 1.2 million DACA-eligible immigrants in the country are considered essential workers.

They are people like Ana Laura Gonzalez, an ICU trauma/surgical nurse at Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas, one of about 62,000 Dreamers nationwide who are health care workers.

"I typically work the night shift, and with more limited staff overnight, were the first line of defense before the doctor arrives," Gonzalez wrote in an op-ed for this newspaper in June. "With no visitors allowed, nurses like me step in to listen to a patients fears, hold their hand, and provide comfort. During this difficult time, helping someone smile is the least I can do."

Though heartened by the Supreme Courts decision, she said the administration was still intent on terminating DACA, putting her and hundreds of thousands of Dreamers potentially in danger of deportation. Dreamers, she said, are depending on Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship.

Advocates for immigration reform have long pushed for a legislative solution for DACA recipients. But attempts to forge bipartisan legislation by tying a DACA solution to broader border security and immigration reforms have collapsed amid squabbling over what a bill should look like.

With broad support among Americans for legislative solutions to help undocumented young immigrants, and with ample evidence that they are vital for the economy, Dreamers shouldnt have to be held hostage to intransigence and stalemates in Congress.

Our elected representatives shouldnt be content to let President Trump dictate immigration policy. They should do their job and find bipartisan answers to our border and immigration issues.

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Editorial: Enough with the politics and restrictions. Protect Dreamers. - Austin American-Statesman