Doubling down on enforcement
With yesterday's speech on immigration, President Obama is essentially doubling down on enforcement. I have written numerous times that I do not believe this strategy will work because no amount of enforcement is sufficient to change anyone's minds. Yet here is the strange part: Obama acknowledges that fact.
THE PRESIDENT: You know, they said we needed to triple the Border Patrol. Or now they’re going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol. Or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they’ll need a moat. (Laughter.) Maybe they want alligators in the moat. (Laughter.) They’ll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That’s politics.
That's a good line, but it therefore seems counterproductive to trumpet enforcement since it satisfies no one. Obama's other lure is economic, making case that the middle class and companies alike will benefit from immigration reform. Hard to see that getting much traction, but it's worth a shot.
3 comments:
Mr Weeks :
I like and love the President of the USA, Obama is the best guy for this job.
But we all have to be patient, he can not reform Immigration in a year, or perhaps in a presidential term.
Obama understands that he has to disengage the USA from wars in Muslim countries, but he has to walk on eggs and be careful, otherwise he would be kicked out of office by people that are not so knowledgeable and smart as he is.
The U. S. President has many constraints upon him, I portray him as a chicken in a nest of hawks, but that is only for laughing like the moats and the crocs.
I remember that a Republican Congressman mentioned the moats and crocs in a session speech. That was a joke and everybody laughed.
It just happens that Obama is youthful, funny, agile, light, nimble, shrewd, acute ...
I am now operating a new site :
PRESIDENTING.COM
to extract all the fun from the Presidential campaign, and yes, to root for Obama
Vicente
The nod to "enforcement" is to get the oppos to buy into a larger immigration reform plan. I don't know if it will work, but I don't see any other way to proceed. There is a certain segment of US society that believes the government could simply up and deport all illegals and 1) it would be easy, and 2) the rest of us would benefit. They believe this fervently and most are imune to facts or persuasion. Obama is hoping the peel off those who might be persuable, so he has to throw them a bone.
I think even more importantly he needs to twist arms in his own party.
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