I have no idea. Maybe she’ll decide that that’s too harsh, and the policies of Dubya in this regard will suffice.
But glad you admit that Democratic policy, as defined by the current Democratic Administration, isn’t one of open borders. Apparently Dubya’s policy was, though.
Hey, it’s what conservatives believe in.
I view illegal immigration as a lost cause for the Republican party. We let it go for too long, had amnesties in the past, have too many Hispanic citizens etc. We just have to accept we will ultimately have more or less unrestricted movement from Mexico and Central America into the United States. Fortunately economics can make it a less attractive option so hopefully the numbers fall with time.
I’m a huge advocate of essentially unrestricted skilled immigration, and I think that the popular arguments pro-illegal people make about how they contribute to the economy ignore the fact that we would get just as many people in this country with valuable job skills if we opened up the flood gates to replace every illegal we could keep out–and those people would be growing the skilled economy, which is the future, not the uneducated unskilled economy, which is dying and will never come back to what it once was.
All that being said, I’m not a single issue immigration voter (I’d be voting for Trump or Cruz if I was, not HRC), but of the two Democrats Bernie is actually closer to me on immigration.
He’s voted against illegal immigrants many times–while Hillary has actually been a friend of them. He voted for two programs in 2006 that funded deportation raids, he voted for a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to be detained indefinitely prior to deportation, he notably did not sign the Harry Reid letter to Obama advocating for ceasing deportations of “DREAMers”, he voted against Ted Kennedy’s 2007 immigration reform bill, and he also voted to protect the Minutemen.
Even during the present campaign Bernie has suggested that “big business” supports the importation of cheap laborers from the developing world to drive down wages, so while Bernie has flip flopped on the immigration issue to attract Latino voters, in his heart of hearts he still doesn’t want them here–he wants to create a society in which blue collar workers see dramatic increases in their wages and he knows that allow greater competition in the labor market is at cross purposes with that. He believes in less free trade and less free borders are requisite for that, to be frank. It’s shocking any Hispanic voted for the most anti-immigrant Democrat in the race in Nevada.
Dubya’s policy was the same as Obama’s, he just wasn’t as effective. There was no effort on the part of the GWB administration to deport less people.
Whether or not it is too harsh is not for the President to decide. That’s Congress’ job, and they duly passed laws governing who can be here and who cannot. It’s up to the President to enforce Congress’ will to the best of his or her ability.
And there was no effort on their part to deport more, either. That was a choice made by the Obama Administration, and therefore reflects a policy difference between the two administrations. It didn’t just happen all by itself.
Let me explain some basics about the American system of government, since apparently you live somewhere else. Congress does indeed pass laws, but that’s far from the end of it.
First of all, a lot of the time, Congress deliberately gives the Executive a lot of latitude in how it applies the law: it’s written right into the law.
Second, maybe you hadn’t noticed, but there’s this thing called the Federal Register. It’s where regulations and proposed regs are published. Regulations are needed because the laws, in and of themselves, generally fail of being operational. What the regs for a given set of laws might look like depends a great deal on the nature of the Administration that writes them. A certain amount of latitude inherently exists in laws, even when Congress writes them pretty specifically.
Third, there’s the question of enforcement of laws. The Executive Branch does not have unlimited resources, and many laws are weakly enforced because Congress provides insufficient resources. Recently, the state of Michigan tried to blame EPA for failing to test lead levels in Flint, Michigan. Republican Congresses don’t like the EPA, and have cut its enforcement budget: it can’t do the sort of testing and inspection that the law theoretically requires.
And the immigration laws, I am told by persons more familiar with them, give the President a great deal of latitude in determining the degree and kind of enforcement he will apply. So you see, even when the laws don’t change, Presidents still have room to make choices within the laws, and budgets may constrain the room they have for choices.
This has been a public service message. 
Well, that just opens up a whole new can of worms, because depending on who you read, either the administration stepped up enforcement to build up support for immigration reform, or they just changed the way the numbers are measured, counting border turnaways as “deportations”.
Yes, that’s what made the “compromise” immigration legislation that came out of the Senate so noxious. It required no enforcement at all. It was left almost completely up to the President. Current law does not do that. The President is required to enforce the law to the best of his ability. What the law does require is some temporary amnesties by executive order for countries where it’s not a good idea to send people back. This does not apply to the vast majority of immigrants.
True. There is no such resources problem with immigration enforcement. The INS was doing workplace raids for quite awhile. They didn’t do fewer because they weren’t effective or were too costly. They did less precisely because they netted so many illegal workers.
So again, budget limitations are not at issue here. There is absolutely no legal reason not to continue to deport a few hundred thousand per year. Unless of course you believe that ALL laws are subject to this kind of executive discretion. Which will make the next GOP administration VERY interesting.
When an agency’s union keeps on saying that they could do their jobs, but are being prevented from doing their jobs, not by a lack of money, but because they are too effective, that’s not lawful discretion. That’s just not enforcing a law because you don’t want to.