A lot of liberals and conservatives alike are touting the fact that Obama deported 2.7 million illegal immigrants during his presidency, the most (?) of any president in history - the political left doing so to deflect the accusation of Obama being soft on illegal immigration, and the political right doing so to portray Trump’s actions or threats as being not all that different from Obama (i.e., if Obama deported them, why object to Trump doing so?)
From a political standpoint it’s hard to see what was gained by Obama doing so. His deportation of so many illegal immigrants could only have hurt his standing among pro-amnesty Democrats, and it wasn’t going to win much Republican favor; Republicans were going to dig in their heels and oppose Obama no matter what. If it’s true that illegal immigrants who subsequently gain amnesty and the right to vote, are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, then Obama’s actions also deprived the Democratic Party of a potential block of future voters, and also, as mentioned, would depress the support for him - and perhaps for the Democratic Party as a whole - among the pro-amnesty wing.
The main block of voters that Obama could have appealed to (not just in 2012 but 2016) by doing this would be the centrist swing voters who are concerned about illegal immigration and might be lost by a pro-amnesty stance (and won over by a tough pro-deportation stance.) But overall it doesn’t look like deporting illegal immigrants in such large numbers was a shrewd political move by Obama.
Well, to put a cite to this, I assume you are getting your info from something like this article.
While true that the Obama administration deported more people than any other, GW Bush’s administration was pretty close. Regardless, the answer to your OP seems to be this:
Hard to see fault here, since a large percentage of those deported were criminals. Looking at Trump’s initial attempts he was refusing entry to basically everyone (who was Muslim or Mexican), without filter. So, you had little children or elderly grandmothers and grandfathers or people who worked as translators and risked their lives for the military overseas. Seems to be a bit of difference.
You know, not everything done by a president is for political reasons. It didn’t help Obama because when Republicans and their news sources claimed that Obama wanted to eliminate borders, which is an obvious lie, their supporters ate it up.
I imagine that Obama deported illegal immigrants because they were here illegally. Since resources are limited, he chose to deport illegal immigrants who had committed other crimes, rather than break up families arbitrarily and expel people who are actually contributing to the US.
I think I don’t understand your confusion. Democrats in general don’t want open borders and want to follow the rule of law. How they choose to allocate resources (deport illegal immigrants who had committed other crimes first) may differ from how Trump chooses to allocate resources.
Which crimes ? Some seem to have been of the drug-partaking ( eg: not dealing ) variety.
Under Obama:
*Detained and Denied the Chance to Say Goodbye to His Dying Father — Aguayo, a lawful permanent resident who grew up in the US, was held in mandatory immigration detention for seven months in 2011 and 2012 while he fought deportation for drug convictions.
“Alice M.,” a 41-year-old graphic designer and Canadian citizen, reported she is barred from living in the US with her US citizen fiancé because of a single 1992 conviction for cocaine possession she received in Canada in her last year of high school, a conviction that was pardoned long ago in Canada.
In 2011, Melida was held in immigration detention for seven months while she fought deportation based on a 2002 misdemeanor drug conviction, her sole conviction in more than 30 years in the United States.
I guess selecting based on religion and nationality is some selection process. But Obama had a heart, he did not break up families, he didn’t deport individuals whose only crime was being here illegally. He focused on those who individuals who actually presented a risk to society and not just trying to please those among us with the smallest hearts.
I think that’s a false equivalence. I agree with you that there’s plenty to criticize (from my liberal perspective) about immigration enforcement under Obama, but Trump’s policies are still much worse.
You’re talking about two different things here. His “muslim ban” executive order had nothing to do with illegal immigration. It was about temporarily halting legal immigration from seven countries. I’m unclear on where your reference to Mexicans in the above post comes from. He didn’t halt immigration from Mexico, at least AFAIK.
Surely it’s worth discussing whether a policy is politically advantageous or not, if for no other reason than so we can praise those who enforced just laws even when it was politically disadvantageous, and criticize those who failed to enforce just laws solely for political advantage.
Since you are, I gather, someone who would consider those 2.7 million deportations the enforcement of a just law, I assume you’re here to offer praise of Obama for acting against his political interests to see them carried out. Right?
Remember that the increase in the numbers came from apprehensions at the border, which would not have been treated as deportations in most previous administrations. The GWB administration started counting catch-and-release cases as formal deportations in 2006, which goosed their numbers on paper, and the Obama administration continued the policy to produce still higher numbers over a longer period of time. Neither administration was necessarily sending more people back in total; it’s just a difference in counting method. Also, deportations of people apprehended in the interior of the country dropped sharply across Obama’s terms in office. Overall, there were potentially different arguments to be made to different constituencies about how immigration enforcement was being handled.
I have mixed feelings about the law being just. Immigration is complex. However, I’m not a huge fan of a nation ruled by whimsy when we have just methods in place to adjust the law.
Politically it was a non-event because both Democrats and Republicans wanted to portray him as a friend to immigrants. He sated his appetite for pure exercise of power for power’s sake. This is an often overlooked component of government action.
Youhave gotto bekidding. And let’s not even talk about some of the serious due process issues facing people whose only “crime” is seeking asylum pursuant to existing international treaties to which the U.S. is signatory.