Free at last? Obama finally acts on US immigrants
Roberto stands outside the White House with tears in his eyes, holding a sign that reads “Gracias Presidente Obama”.
He had begun to fear, he tells me, that the president who had promised so much on immigration would run out of time or resolve or power, and the hope he’d given illegal immigrants from Latin America would fade without any change to their status.
Forever without rights to education, healthcare, work. Forever in the shadows.
Roberto is a teacher, from the borderlands of New Mexico. He says he’s emotional on behalf of the kids – the children caught up in the politics of who stays and who goes.
When we finish our interview, the crowd around us bursts into applause. I’m guessing that means they agree. Roberto has spoken well.
For a lame duck president, Barack Obama spoke well on Thursday evening when he delivered his televised address to the nation.
At least, he didn’t sound like someone whose party had just been given a black eye at the ballot box.
He sounded like someone with two more years in office – no friends to lose in congress, and no further electoral tests until his presidency is done.
He dared the Republicans to challenge his plans. And reached for the scriptures to explain why they shouldn’t:
“We shall not oppress a stranger for we know the heart of a stranger – we were strangers once, too.”
People or politics?
The prospect of unilateral executive action on immigration had already drawn threats from senior Republicans – even before the details were known.
They promise a new wave of obstructionism. Blocking administration appointees – the surgeon general, supreme court justices, the attorney general.
There were even mutterings of another government shutdown. So swiftly, the promise of collaboration, and joint efforts to break the gridlock in Washington, all in pieces.
There are so many questions. Why wasn’t this done earlier, in the president’s first term, when there were enough Democrats in congress to carry comprehensive reform, rather than temporary measures delivered from the presidential pulpit?
Is this best interpreted really as a Democratic call to arms to Hispanic voters, with an eye on 2016?
But, as Roberto would remind me, that’s just politics.
From today, life will be vastly different for 5 million immigrants: men and women who clean American offices, weed American gardens, clear Americans’ plates and build American houses.
If they have been here for more than five years, and have children who are American citizens, they’ll be able to apply to stay. They won’t be deported. They’ll have to pay taxes. They’ll be allowed to work.
They can come out of the shadows.
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