Demagoguery Watch: Obama Suspends 300k Deportation Cases

On the heels of his comically delayed statement on Syria - and just hours before he embarked on his latest vacation - President Obama sought to strengthen his reelection prospects by pandering to his base:

Facing an election-year backlash from Hispanic voters, President Obama put on hold the deportation of up to 300,000 illegal immigrants who have been rounded up by local police and turned over to the federal government under a program Obama instituted.

Obama called for individual reviews of 300,000 deportation cases and ordered that any cases involving children or immigrants who had not committed violent crimes -- the original target of his immigration enforcement program -- be suspended.

The administration's announcement follows increasing criticism from the Hispanic community of the president's aggressive deportation policies, which led to the removal of nearly 1 million immigrants over the last two years. No other president has overseen that many deportations.
"I think the president understands that he is in considerable trouble with his base all-around," said Allert Brown-Gort, director of the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies. "Quite clearly this announcement comes as a result of understanding that Latinos are becoming ever more important ... particularly in battleground states such as Colorado and New Mexico."

Source: Washington Examiner

Of course, there's another side to this maneuver - it is yet another overreach by an administration that doesn't have much use for laws:

Critics described the decision as a step by the administration toward offering amnesty for illegal immigrants. "The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), head of the House Judiciary Committee.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies against legalization, said: "In essence, the administration has declared that U.S. immigration is now virtually unlimited to anyone willing to try to enter—subject only to those who commit violent felonies after arrival."

Source: Wall Street Journal

Back to the base... Even Obama's supporters in the Latino community are doubting his intentions and his will to follow through:

"Our borders remain porous. We have a defective departure system in place. We have 11 million people without the authority to be here," said Michael Wildes, an immigration lawyer and well-known Democratic fundraiser. "And the president is going to point to 300,000 [immigrants] and go easy on them?"

He said Obama has far more work to do on immigration reform.

"This is tantamount to putting a Band-Aid on a cancer," he said. "Loosening the reins on nonviolent children, while thoughtful and appropriate, is merely a Band-Aid."

Brown-Gort said the policy change is a "good step," but that the Hispanic community is beginning to doubt whether the president will follow through.

"He talks about being our friend, and yet underground, under his watch, his people are very, very busy deporting everybody," Brown-Gort said.

Hispanic voters are vital to Obama's re-election efforts. He won 67 percent of their votes in 2008, but his approval rating among Hispanics has fallen to 51 percent, according to the latest Gallup poll.

Source: Washington Examiner

To recap: Obama will spend 2012 telling the Latino community that he took unprecedented and unpopular steps to help 300,000 illegal aliens remain in this country. Meanwhile, he'll be telling everyone else that his administration was tougher on illegal immigration than any other administration in the history of the United States.

Hope! Change! Demagoguery!