Less than a year ago, the Senate approved an immigration bill that was thought to be backed by John Boehner, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives. The bill made sense and most Americans asked Congress to solve the problem they had been carrying for years. Boehner failed. He could not convince a vocal minority within his own party to take on an acceptable compromise.
The president decided to be cautious and wait before going on to look for partial solutions to immigration by means of executive orders. However, the pressure by extreme right groups in the House of Representatives prevented sanity from prevailing. Afraid of losing a local election, Republicans chose to put their own candidate’s presidential election in danger—the election becoming very difficult without the support of Hispanics and Asians—and decided to refuse to do their job and vote for a constructive project.
Obama does not have to keep on waiting for Republicans to understand that the current situation is unbearable. Even before he took over the presidency, George W. Bush stood for a comprehensive immigration reform. His reward came in 2001 when he won 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. By 2006, Bush had developed a five-point plan that included a legislative process for the 12 million undocumented.
Then as now, the most conservative Republicans disagreed with Bush and, in exchange, they demanded more border fortification and militarization and refused any other legalization program. In 2012, Mitt Romney came up with the idea of self-deportation for those 12 million undocumented, which turned into a meager 27 percent of the Hispanic vote as opposed to 71 percent who voted for Obama.
It is Obama who has finally announced that he will do as much as he can in terms of immigration where permitted by law, by means of executive orders. It is not the ideal solution to reach a perfect union among all Americans but, considering the circumstances, I cannot see any other solution given Republicans’ ideological foolishness and political shortsightedness.
The first thing Obama has to do is to stop deporting people who work and do not have a criminal record. He must void the programs that confuse the work of the police with immigration agents. He could also order the expedition of the delivery of legal residence permits to relatives of citizens without needing to leave the national territory.
The flow of children and mothers from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras arriving to this country and escaping from violence and a lack of opportunities is increasing. Even if Obama is being pressured in this moment of crisis because of this situation, he knows, as well as all Americans, that immigrant children are entitled to a fair trial before being deported to their native country.
One of the factors that Obama has to evaluate before deporting those children and youngsters is that the current rise of violence they are escaping from is the result of the gangs of boys who grew up in the United States and were deported to the countries they were born in, but where they never grew up. Now, they dedicate themselves to drug trafficking, with the United States being the final destination.
As the most hysterical voices have done already, defaming these children by accusing them of being “future homeboys” is a disgrace. In Murrieta, CA, they stopped trucks that were carrying these children to a detention center. Fortunately, that handful of anti-immigrant voices does not by any means represent the majority of Americans, who still believe in justice, equity and compassion.