Sí, se puede. Yes, it can be done. President Obama showed last week that it’s possible to find a reasonable, humane solution for at least 800,000 young people who were illegally brought into this country as children. All you need is a moral compass and a heart.
Seems to me that Obama’s unilateral decision to let these noncitizens remain here without fear of deportation should have quieted critics who bray and whine about a supposed lack of bold presidential leadership. It didn’t, of course. Republicans immediately — and cynically — charged that the president’s move was purely political, aimed at boosting his chances of re-election. Polls show that Latino voters care passionately about immigration reform. If Obama’s initiative energizes and motivates this key segment, which already supports him by about 2-to-1, it becomes much tougher to defeat the president in the fall.
But if taking action on the immigration issue is good politics for Obama and the Democrats, then Republicans have only themselves to blame. The GOP has made a conscious decision to offer nativists and xenophobes a comfortable home where their extremist views go unchallenged. No one should be surprised if voters who think differently about immigration issues — including some who are recent immigrants themselves — feel unwelcome.
Where is Mitt Romney on all of this, you ask? Excellent question. Predictably, Romney was critical of Obama’s action, saying he should not have resorted to a “stopgap” measure when a long-term solution is needed. Indeed, the new policy will require qualified immigrants to re-apply for permission to live and work here every two years. And since Obama created the policy by executive fiat, a future president could simply rescind it — which is just what a President Romney would do, right?
