Will The 2020 Democrats Reject Obama's Immigration Legacy?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

With Joe Biden on the debate stage Wednesday night, the other Democratic primary candidates will have another chance to criticize elements of his long political record. But Biden’s presence — and his wholehearted embrace of his time as second-in-command during the “Obama-Biden administration” — also creates an opportunity for his rivals to take on President Obama’s legacy, particularly on policies like immigration.

We’ve already seen a preview of what this might look like. In the first debate, Kamala Harris criticized a deportation program that operated for much of Obama’s presidency and required cooperation from local and state law enforcement, saying it allowed for the deportation of non-criminals. And more recently, Julián Castro said it is “inevitable” that Biden will have to respond to the record-breaking number of deportations that occurred on Obama’s watch. By some measures, Obama did deport more people than any other president in modern history, something for which many immigration rights advocates still criticize him. He also detained families until the courts made him stop, although his administration didn’t have a policy of family separation, as President Trump has claimed.

Disavowing Obama’s stance on immigration is complicated for Democrats, though — and not just because the former president remains wildly popular among the party. He also issued Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the executive order that protected young undocumented immigrants from deportation, at the end of his first term. Plus, by the end of his second term, his deportation numbers had fallen significantly, and his policies were closer to what some of the 2020 candidates are now proposing. And, of course, because Trump has adopted a harsher strategy on immigration enforcement, it has been less pressing for primary candidates to argue against Obama-era policies. But this doesn’t mean Obama’s immigration record won’t loom large over the primary. In fact, the extent to which candidates embrace Obama-era immigration policies could emerge as an important dividing line.

During the first few years of his presidency, Obama earned the nickname “deporter in chief” due to the high numbers of undocumented immigrants deported during his first term. This marked a sharp contrast with the comprehensive immigration reform he had promised on the campaign trail. And over the course of Obama’s time in office, more than 3 million unauthorized immigrants were removed from the country, compared to about 2 million immigrants under President George W. Bush and less than a million under President Bill Clinton.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-the-2020-democrats-reject-obamas-immigration-legacy/

[LiberalFighter]

1. Gee I wonder how that will play out with voters that she needs.