The Two Sides of Obama on Immigration

One of the keys to Barack Obama’s electoral success in 2008 was his ability to inspire different expectations in various groups with diverse ideologies. Obama the candidate was a type of blank screen onto which progressives, pacifists, centrists and even conservatives fed up with Bush projected their image of the president they desired.

From the Oval Office, when decisions are made, it’s not only the case that messages are sent — it’s also more difficult to square the political circle. But Obama hasn’t stopped trying. A clear example of this is his immigration policy and, more concretely, the deportations of undocumented immigrants.

The matter of immigration is one of the most controversial political issues in the United States, and it’s one that has not only prevented the passage of comprehensive legislative reform for years but has also forced Obama to perform a complicated balancing act where he tries to appease the right without drowning the hopes of the Hispanic community.

Until this week, this exercise consisted of, on the one hand, claiming to enforce legislation more effectively than his predecessor — last year a record was set with 393,000 deportations — and, on the other, showing his support for a new law that would pave the way for the legalization of the nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants believed to be living in the United States.

Fed up with the combination of kind words and record deportations, several Hispanic organizations have intensified their criticisms of Obama and are even protesting against his immigration policy. The White House seems to have finally heard the cries and is beginning to take seriously the possibility of losing face in the eyes of Hispanic voters — votes that were taken for granted in light of the anti-immigrant rhetoric of some Republicans as a result of the passage of legislation in California.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano thus announced this week that the deportation process of 300,000 people would be reviewed on a case by case basis and that only those persons who had committed crimes would face priority deportation. It has been interpreted in the press as a halt to the deportations of tens of thousands. But it remains to be seen how this new policy plays out.

In fact, the rhetoric coming from the Department of Homeland Security has always been just that: focusing on deporting criminals, although the terms might not have always been expressed so clearly. But the reality is that, in the two and a half years of the Obama presidency, people who have committed no crime other than not having legal papers have also been deported.

Will the administration apply its policy of only prioritizing the deportation of criminals this time around? To what extent will factory raids to catch illegal immigrants, who are not later deported, be reduced?

It is worth noting that this announcement has come in the middle of August, when Congress is in recess, Obama is on Martha’s Vineyard and political reporters are also going on vacation. In this way the opposition’s denunciation of an amnesty is barely heard in the media’s echo chamber.

In the field of Republican candidates, where each is trying to come across as the most anti-Obama, it’s very likely that the immigration issue will soon appear on the agenda. And then it will cost Obama dearly to keep playing both sides. Soon he’ll have to decide between them.