Bloomberg View (Opinion)
By Francis Wilkinson
July 8, 2015
Conservative fears are finally coming true.
Back
when President Barack Obama was deporting large numbers of undocumented
immigrants -- 409,849 individuals in 2012 -- conservatives presented an
alternate reality.
"The federal government has reached a point now where virtually no one
is being deported, except those convicted of serious crimes," Republican
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, an arch immigration foe, said in June
2013.
The
conservative nightmare extended beyond the administration's allegedly
cushy treatment of undocumented immigrants already settled in the U.S.
Some conservatives, including
Sessions, characterized Obama's border control as a policy of "open
borders." (The plural of border is always a curious usage; none of these
critics seems the least bit concerned about the Canadian frontier.) The
lawless brown hordes streaming unchecked over
the border and settling into a life of ease have been a recurring
source of angst for some conservatives.
In
reality, the U.S. population of undocumented immigrants was about 12
million in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center, which is widely
regarded as the most accurate
source. By 2012, the number had fallen to about 11 million. In a
mathematical miracle, all those people streaming north through "open
borders" led to a net decrease in undocumented immigrants in the
country.
In
his first term, Obama had hoped that aggressive deportations and strong
border security would earn the confidence of conservatives, enabling
Congress to pass a comprehensive
fix to immigration. In 2013, 14 Republicans helped push immigration
reform through the Senate. But in the House, the legislation fell before
the thrashing sounds of recrimination and crazy. According to Speaker
of the House John Boehner, the reason House Republicans
were incapable of passing immigration reform legislation was
“widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to
enforce our laws.”
Last
November, Obama put flesh on the conservative bogeyman. A Nov. 20,
2014, DHS memorandum narrowed the categories of immigrants targeted for
deportation, citing criminals,
potential terrorists and recent border crossers. The memo advises:
Nothing
in this memorandum should be construed to prohibit or discourage the
apprehension, detention, or removal of aliens unlawfully in the United
States who are not
identified as priorities herein. However, resources should be
dedicated, to the greatest degree possible, to the removal of aliens
described in the priorities set forth above, commensurate with the level
of prioritization identified.
As
the Washington Post reported in a superb story last week, the
Department of Homeland Security is rapidly retreating from deporting
law-abiding undocumented immigrants
from the nation's interior. “We are making it clear that we should not
expend our limited resources on deporting those who have been here for
years, have committed no serious crimes and have, in effect, become
integrated members of our society,” DHS Secretary
Jeh Johnson told an audience at Rice University last month. "These
people are here, they live among us, and they are not going away."
The
southern border is still relatively secure -- more so than at any time
in history. But Johnson's "integration" language marks a new era.
According to the Post, the
administration is on track to deport almost half as many people --
229,000 -- this year as in 2012.
The
immigration security bureaucracy is notoriously independent-minded;
agents in the field may not be as lenient with settled immigrants as
their bosses in Washington
would like. But Obama has clearly given up on both legislation and
Republicans, and the president who was once called "deporter in chief"
by immigration activists appears to have had enough of deportations too.
Those who cross the border and are caught will
still be sent back. But the typical undocumented immigrant has been
living in the U.S. for a decade or more. Obama seems intent on making it
as easy as possible for those immigrants to stay.
Donald
Trump's squawking on Mexicans roiled the Republican presidential field
in late June and dominated the news. It took a while for leading
candidates, including the
most pro-immigration voices in the field, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, to
repudiate Trump. (Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, whose inability to
nail down an immigration stance has become comical, never quite got
there.)
The
2016 Republican nominee for president will almost certainly not make a
fuss about deportation policy, regardless of past positions. In all
likelihood, facing a difficult
road with Hispanic and Asian voters, he will support legalization of
long-settled undocumented immigrants. Citizenship remains an unsettled
question. But the era of deportation is coming to an end.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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