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Obama’s efforts for immigration decent yet part of political football: Analyst

Tuesday, 17 February 2015 9:52 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 18 February 2015 2:27 AM ]

Hector Perez, 11 years old, and Gretter Marino,12 years old, (R) both originally from Cuba join with others as they are sworn in as United States citizens during a naturalization ceremony put on by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Biscayne National Park on February 17, 2015 in Homestead, Florida.

US President Barack Obama’s efforts to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States are “decent” but part of a “political football” played by parties in the United States that is set to hold presidential elections next year, says a Boston-based political expert.

Patrick Daniel Welch was commenting on a judge’s move in Texas to temporarily block Obama's executive orders, which would shield up to 4.7 million people from deportation.

In an interview with Press TV on Tuesday, Welch called Obama’s proposal a “decent” one, which needs Obama’s executive power “to get around the blockade of the Republican restriction”.

However, the US president promised to take measures for immigration when he came to office but instead he continued the “harsher policies of the Bush regime”, he further argued.

Obama has “actually deported more people than the other US presidents up to now” and is known as “a great deporter” among immigration reform activists.

Such a move, which would lead to court fights with “some of the most reactionary and admittedly racist sectors of the American political spectrum”, is “in fact a great show”, he added, as it aims at the Democrats’ need for a “huge Latino turnout to maintain the office” after the 2016 presidential elections.

“That is not only intensely cynical, but it highlights the political football that is immigration.”

Such is the case in “American politics in general” with parties “pretending to be different” in an attempt to win votes, Welch noted.

“Democrats always seem to bring up these new-deal sounding tricks when they have no power,” and this is not by accident but it is a “cynical type of gamesmanship,” he further said.

Racism history is America

Apart from that “white Americans are some of the most racist, immigrant-haters on earth” as they initially immigrated from Europe, “destroyed the only non-immigrants”, and then “forced immigration” from Africa to “help build the economy that they now profit from”, Welch said.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s possible to maintain such a hateful attitude. It’s like we made it through the door and we’re going to close it from the inside.”

On Monday, US District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, a city along the Texas border with Mexico, blocked Obama’s orders, arguing he overstepped his legal authority.

The move came following pressure by 26 states -- all but two Republican-governed that claimed the president had acted unlawfully.

The White House said on Tuesday the Justice Department would appeal the action.

NT/NT

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