Obama’s Decision to Postpone Action on Immigration Isn’t Political, It’s just Politics

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

To hear President Obama say it, politics didn’t trump immigration, politics did.

Now, take that confused feeling and stretch it across most of the U.S Latino community.

Over the weekend the President asserted that the assertion he had made a few weeks before would be postponed until after the mid-term election. He had said very recently that he would take decisive action on immigration before the end of the summer.  And he did, decisively postponing a decision for a better day: he needs time, he said, to give the immigration issue a good venting, so his decision would be better explained. Also, he said, the summer’s undocumented minor border crisis gummed-up the works, in more ways than one would think. The crisis heightened the rhetoric, distracted the discourse, shuffled the political landscape. Immigration’s momentum was usurped by the idea of a horde of invading children, bent on undermining the nation’s economy, health and politics.  Those weren’t the best times, the President alluded, to cap off with decisive, big, promised, immigration action. 

Meanwhile 1,100 persons are deported from the U.S. every day.

 But, lets be clear, the latest assertive postponement is not political. It’s just that the timing is better after the election.

I’m not surprised. So far, the immigration issue has been kicked down the road as a can, hung as an enticement like a carrot on a stick, tossed like red meat, pushed like a wedge, bartered like a political commodity, and promised like a sales pitch on a used car lot.

And 1,100 persons are deported every day.

But it makes sense. Immigration has a proven track record as a can, and a carrot, and as red meat, and as a wedge. Why change that now? The issue will play much better on November 5th than it will on election day, November 4th. On the 5th a new congress will be comfortably seated and politics will morph into a race for 2016, where Latino votes matter more. Before that day what matters to Latinos matters little in the political calculi. Except for Colorado, Latino voters hold almost no sway in electoral politics this mid-term. In fact, the President’s decision to postpone the promise made to Latinos was reportedly prompted by key Senate Democrats who would rather the waters not be stirred in places like Alaska, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Louisiana and Arkansas where control of the U.S. Senate could sway toward the Republicans. Any Obama action on immigration would inflame the partisans who would show up to the polls with flaming torches and pitchforks at the ready – Democrats could lose the Senate.

But it’s not about politics. It’s just a mere 58 day postponement – what’s another 63,800 deportations?

The President, though, does have the right idea. He’s just got the wrong context.

This is what politicians don’t understand about Latinos and immigration: It isn’t politics, it’s personal.

Let me explain. It’s an often repeated truism that the majority of U.S. Latinos are either one or two steps removed from the immigration issue. They either know an undocumented immigrant or know of one. They’re our family members, community members, friends and acquaintances. For 11 million undocumented Latinos the issue is very personal. But that’s not the context I’m talking about. It’s been the rhetoric that’s brought the issue to close quarters. 

When Latinos hear a politician talk about immigration they don’t hear what the politician will or won’t do regarding the issue. When politicos talk immigration, Latinos hear what the politician thinks about Latinos.

So the number of deportations may matter for the President’s immigration credibility, but what matters more is how Obama’s regard for Latinos is understood. A broken promise followed by another broken promise speak louder than his sincere concern. 1,100 deportations per day aren’t going unnoticed. The fact that politicians believe that Latinos can be kicked, wedged and bartered speaks loudly of how they regard us. Obama has more at stake in the next 58 days than he has on the 59th. He’s not running for reelection, but he could lose the Senate. And he’s willing to leave Latinos out in the cold in order to avoid that.

That doesn’t tell me what the President will do for me as much as it tells me what he thinks of me.

I’ve admired Obama’s cold political calculations. I’ve watched how almost everything he does is calculated as on a chessboard with many future moves in his plan. And that’s what angers Latinos the most about this President. On his political chessboard, Latinos are disposable pawns.  

[Photo by The White House/Flickr]

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