Obama's Immigration Machinations

Not for a moment do I buy that President Obama has suddenly grasped the plight of illegal immigrant children. For one, he is on record declaring that the law ties his hands about the matter – that he cannot act unilaterally, or so he said in a widely available video from just a year or so ago. Somehow this is supposed to have changed and now his sense of justice, fairness and benevolence has kicked in and led him to reverse himself. (I thought it was Mitt Romney who wobbled on public policy matters!) No.

For Mr. Obama, what would be the best clue to his approach to these matters is his repeated profession of pragmatism. Now, in this case pragmatism would direct him to do whatever will improve his chance for reelection. If the pragmatism had to do with his having found a suitable means to help all those young illegal immigrants to finally get a solid foothold in the country they have come to consider their own, this executive decision could have been made many moons ago. Indeed, those young men and women could have been moved out of limbo a long time ago by Mr. Obama. There was no administrative reason for him to wait until now if there is none now.

The only sensible explanation is that the upcoming presidential contest is getting tighter than Obama & Co. had anticipated so now it's a good tactic for him to play to a pretty strong special interest group in the United States, namely, Latinos and others whose goals involve becoming American citizens any way they can and all those who sympathize with them. That is a large chunk of voters! (I am one of those immigrants who had to jump through all the legal loops in order to become naturalized.)

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