Obama's Shameless Legacy On Immigration
Obama should be remembered as the president who first wooed over skeptical Latino voters in 2008 with promises that he would make immigration reform a top priority -- only to bury it at the bottom of his agenda for four years.
He's the president who criticized his predecessor for raids in which "nursing mothers are torn from their babies" but then went on to separate record numbers of families through deportation and detain women and children from Central America indefinitely.
He's the president who spent three years arguing with supporters that he didn't have the executive power to stop deportations only to reverse course in election years and miraculously find the power he said he didn't have.
He's the president whose executive actions to limit deportations were so badly crafted and so likely to be struck down by the courts that we have to wonder whether that was the idea all along.
He's the president who ramped up the deportation apparatus and gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement so much power that future presidents will find it difficult to rein in the agency. Record numbers of deportations could well become the new normal.
Finally, Obama is the president who shamelessly never missed an opportunity to use immigration to achieve his own political goals. He now leaves office with the appearance that he tried to find a solution -- when the hard truth is he was a big part of the problem.
As legacies go, that's a terrible one.
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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.
Copyright 2016 Washington Post Writers Group
