Promises and Accusations

A Closer Look at Migration in Tuesday's Debate

After avoiding the topic altogether during their first debate, President Obama and Mitt Romney finally addressed migration last night during the town-hall session in New York. If you missed the debate, the clip below captures their responses to the one question posed on immigration policy. ABC/Univision also has a fairly concise rundown of the two candidates' positions as articulated last night.

Romney addressed the topic first, stating that his top two priorities are streamlining the legal immigration system and stopping illegal immigration, in that order. President Obama responded by suggesting that his administration has already addressed each of those issues, reminding viewers that there are currently more agents patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border than at any other time in history and that “the flow of undocumented workers across the border is actually lower than it’s been in 40 years.” He went on to contrast his own enforcement strategy to the one proposed by Governor Romney:

[If] we’re going to go after folks who are here illegally, we should do it smartly and go after folks who are criminals, gangbangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families. And that’s what we’ve done.

This statement aptly summarizes the Obama’s administration case for its approach to undocumented migration: that prioritizing the removal of immigrants who pose a threat to public safety is a smarter and more humane use of enforcement resources. However, as critics have been wont to point out, Obama’s policies have, thus far, failed to meet his stated goals.

In his use of the word “gangbangers” as shorthand to personify the type of migrant that should be targeted for deportation, President Obama employed a dubious tactic also invoked by Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan during his 2010 reelection campaign. In response to a question from the Mountain Xpress on collaboration with federal immigration authorities, Duncan’s began by touting his department’s participation in the WNC Gang Task Force. In these statements, Obama and Duncan are both appealing to the common association in public discourse between immigrants and criminality. Shortly after the debate, Colorlines.com published an excellent response to Obama’s use of this association, pointing out that only 4% of migrants deported by the Obama administration in the first quarter of 2012 had an “aggravated felony” on their record, and only 14% had any criminal record at all. Those numbers hardly paint a picture of targeted enforcement to preserve public safety, especially from an administration that portrays its policies as so uniquely humane.

Pivoting to contrast his position on immigration enforcement to his opponent's, the president pointed out that one of Romney’s immigration advisors, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, co-authored Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. In doing so, he raised the topic of “self-deportation,” a term Romney invoked during the GOP primary as his preferred tool to address undocumented migration. This strategy, also commonly known as “attrition through enforcement,” seeks to make life so onerous for migrants without legal status that they choose to leave the United States on their own. This notion is the animating force behind laws like Arizona’s SB1070 and Alabama’s even more aggressive HB56, which this blog will explore in more detail next week.

As their responses to the immigration question drew to a close, Romney and Obama took turns pointing fingers over the failure of comprehensive immigration reform efforts. Campaigning in 2008, Obama promised to introduce such a bill during the first year of his presidency. In a recent interview with Univision, Obama described his lack of action on the issue as the “biggest failure” of his presidency to date. Romney, somewhat ironically appearing to channel the lament of many immigrant rights advocates, accused the president of failing even to try. Obama responded by pinning blame on Republicans in Congress, asserting that “we have not seen Republicans serious about this issue at all.” This claim is largely true. However, immigrant communities in North Carolina will not soon forget that our own U.S. Senator, Kay Hagan, was one of five Democrats to join with the GOP to filibuster the DREAM Act, which would have opened up a path to citizenship for over 50,000 undocumented young people in our state alone.

The candidates finished their exchange by appealing to hope, especially within the Latino community, whose support both parties covet in this election cycle and those to come.

Obama: I can deliver, Governor, a whole bunch of Democrats to get comprehensive immigration reform done. 

Romney: I’ll get it done. I’ll get it done. First year.

After offering these grandiose promises of reform and snide implications about their respective opponent's ineffectuality, President Obama and Governor Romney moved quickly along to the next issue. It remains to be seen whether and how each intends to follow through with his promise in 2013 and beyond.