Immigration Reform

I meant to comment on this a couple of days ago, before I went away on a brief vacation, but I didn’t have time. So even though the news is a few days old now, I really want to commend President Obama for changing how immigration agents handle deportations to now focus on getting rid of criminals and more or less leaving peaceful people alone.

I was extremely disappointed in Obama’s immigration policy early in his administration. While ideally we’d get an immigration reform bill through Congress, that’s basically impossible with the Republican Party run by the crazies. But like with labor and environmental policies, Obama has a tremendous amount of power over how immigration policy is enforced. And he took the kind of activist, well-run government that is ideal under a liberal leader and turned it against the families of the people who had voted him into office, setting new records in deportation numbers. I guess he did this as part of his centrist move after winning election.

I’m not sure why Obama changed the policy. Maybe he was moved by the injustice of it deporting college students who had arrived as kids or hard-working single moms. More likely, he realized he really needs Latino votes if he wants to get reelected and they are really mad at him for this. Turns out that just naming a Latina to the Supreme Court isn’t quite going to make up for deporting everyone in the minds of most Latinos. Who knew.

But I don’t care why he did it, it’s the right move to make. Those who are here peacefully should be left alone, at least in lieu of Congressional action on immigration.