Comment: Obama Insults Immigrants - A recent article in Politico quoted President Obama on immigration matters. Mr. Obama's statements appear below, together with our comments.
Mr. Obama: "I think that in some ways there is an unrealistic notion of what
I can get done by myself .The thinking seems to be that if I make a speech
and if I am absolutely persuaded - or persuasive - that somehow the
Republican leadership in the Senate is going to change their mind and
they're going to say, 'You know what? The president is right and we should
have done this all along.' And that's just not how things work."
Comment: Mr. Obama would be believable in blaming the legislature if he had
already acted to deliver such immigration benefits as are within his sole
and unrestricted executive power (such as granting TPS to all the
undocumented). Not only has he not done that, members of his Administration
(particularly ICE Chief Morton) go around proudly boasting about the number
of American families that they break-up every day. Mr. Obama has earned the
appellation "Deporter-in-Chief". To blame Republicans in a legislature with
overwhelming Democratic majorities for (in)actions completely under the
President's executive control is insulting to immigrants.
Mr. Obama: "I know that within the Latino press, at least, there's been this
constant commentary, 'Well, he had 60 votes for health care, why couldn't he
get 60 votes for immigration reform?' . And I just want to remind everybody:
actually, after Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, I only had 59 votes. I
didn't have 60. I had 59 votes for health care. The only reason that we were
able to get that passed was we had already had a vote in the Senate just
barely to get it done; just barely were we able to get it done."
Comment: It was the Democratic leadership, emphatically including Mr. Obama,
which chose to prioritize the healthcare bill over immigration (which
healthcare bill, nota bene, will soon be de-funded by the incoming
Republican House). Mr. Obama cannot pass the buck on the responsibility for
making the cold political choice of pursuing one long-sought Democratic goal
over the long-term benefits of locking-in the immigrant vote (which would
make many long-sought Democratic goals achievable). We congratulate the
Latino press, particularly Univision, for pointing out the obvious: the
current Democratic leadership appears to believe that the statement
"immigrants must wait" is written into our constitution, that every other
priority must precede immigration. The current Democratic
leadership, including Mr. Obama and Speaker Pelosi willingly sacrificed many
Democratic seats for the climate bill, which of course, died in the Senate.
On immigration, however, Mr. Obama appears to believe that Univision's
audience can easily be fooled by sophistry.
Mr. Obama: "The only thing that I just ask is that within the community,
people understand I can't snap my fingers and make this happen. And so I
think what has been interesting is the degree to which people have expressed
frustration for me, somebody who supports comprehensive immigration reform,
and less criticism sometimes of the people who oppose immigration reform.
That doesn't make sense. I am as strong an ally as anybody has ever been in
this Oval Office when it comes to solving this problem."
Comment: Mr. Obama alleges that he supports CIR. Words are cheap. Strong
actions on his part to further CIR are conspicuous by their absence. Mr.
Obama's predecessor repeatedly expended significant political capital to
push for immigration benefits, against powerful opposition in his own party.
The clear historical record demonstrates that no one who has ever occupied
the Oval Office pushed harder for immigrants than did Mr. George W. Bush. In
contrast, Mr. Obama has not offered anything beyond rhetoric. There is no
TPS for all, ICE and CBP continue to run amuck, there is no amelioration in the anti-immigrant culture at USCIS, hundreds of thousands of American families
continue to be broken each year (for which Mr. Obama's minions take
"credit"), and Mr. Obama rubs salt into immigrants' wounds by
insinuating that he is an "ally".
Mr. Obama will face the people again in about 2 years, thanks to the
blessings of democracy that our country enjoys. Mr. Obama has till then to
take bold and muscular actions to deliver such immigration benefits as are
within his executive discretion to provide. For our country's sake, we hope
that Mr. Obama will see the positive in the hostile stories in the immigrant
press - these stories highlight a problem that he still has the power to
address. If he does nothing but talk, he will learn the hard way that the
"immigrant vote" is a reality in this nation of immigrants, not a historical artifact of a hundred years ago.
Its presence and absence will both be felt on election day, 2012.
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