NAVARRETTE: Obama breaks immigration reform pledge
By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Last modified: 2012-01-30T04:02:03Z
Published: Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012
What chutzpah. President Barack Obama is trying to turn one of his major liabilities — his cruel, cynical, dishonest and clumsy handling of the immigration issue — into a liability for Republicans.
Having broken his promise to make immigration reform a priority, divided countless families with a record 1.2 million deportations, and attempted to deceive Latinos into believing that most of the people removed were criminals when the figures say otherwise, Obama now wants Latinos to believe that the real villains are Republicans in Congress.
It's a bold move for a president whose job approval rating with Latinos has fallen to 49 percent, according to a recent poll by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Obama seems to think that the best card to play is to profess his support for the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide undocumented students with a pathway to citizenship if they attend college or join the military. According to polls, the legislation has the support of about 80 percent of Latinos.
But you always need to ignore what Obama says and watch what he does — or doesn't do.
In his recent State of the Union address, here's what Obama said: "Let's also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hard- working students in this country face another challenge: the fact that they aren't yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation."
Not just the threat. Under the Obama administration, many high school and college students have been deported. Others were slated for deportation and escaped that fate only with the help of lawyers, the media or activists.
Obama went on to say: "I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That's why my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That's why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office. The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now."
Why the rush? The president had three years to push for such reform and, for two of those years, his party controlled both houses of Congress. The new sense of urgency comes from the fact that we're in an election year.
Finally, he said: "But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let's at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away."
Seriously? Who is "expelling" these young people? Obama and his administration. Congress has nothing to do with it.
Obama has the power, through executive order, to reprioritize deportations so that students go to the bottom of the stack. He has tried to do some of that. And yet it's too little, too late.
Obama's remarks only resonate if the people hearing them have short memories.
They aren't supposed to remember an interview last March with Univision's Jorge Ramos. Obama insisted that his administration isn't deporting students eligible for the DREAM Act, only to be confronted by Ramos who produced video of a DREAM Act student holding a deportation order.
Or that, in December 2010, Obama stood idly by as members of his own party killed an earlier version of the DREAM Act by denying Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the 60 votes he needed to prevent a GOP filibuster.
What if the Senate Democrats who killed the DREAM Act were just following orders?
If you think this isn't a possibility, then you're the one who is dreaming.
Read more here: NAVARRETTE: Obama breaks immigration reform pledge - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee
