The Obama Administrations Immigration Policy

The Trump Administrations immigration policies have been so devastating for immigrants, it is easy to idealize the past Obama Administrations attitudes towards legal and illegal immigrants. In both rhetoric and policy, the Obama Administration attempted more positive and welcoming attitudes to immigrants compared with President Trump. However, it is important to contextualize Obamas executive outreach in a wider frame of history and not to excessively idealize them, according to legal scholars.

President Obama has had both his detractors and his supporters regarding immigration policy. According to one critic, Kristina Campbell (2010), professor at the University of the District of Columbia David A Clarke School of Law, although policies toward immigration throughout the 21st century as a whole have been highly problematic for immigrants, the Obama Administrations actions still leave much to be desired, in terms of how immigrants were actively detained at the border and a lack of meaningful legislation to protect immigrants and the children of immigrants. But according to Professor Michael Kagan (2016) of University of Nevada, Las VegasWilliam S. Boyd School of Law, the Obama Administrations record is not as problematic as it might seem to be, but rather the result of political and bureaucratic forces and wrangling for power and control.

Specifically, Kagan (2016) argues that by using a mixture of executive actions and prosecutorial decisions, Obamas aim has been to focus enforcement against immigrants caught at the border or with criminal records while easing the path toward integration for others (p.665). Critics have alleged this creates a divide between so-called good and bad immigrants in a manner which is not helpful, while Obamas supporters argue that he is the first president in recent memory to take aggressive action to protect the rights of at least some immigrants who came to the country illegally yet who have made a meaningful contribution to America.

Part of the difference in these views of different law professors in the field of immigration law may lie in the degree to which they view the federal government as powerful in influencing immigration policy. Campbell (2010) argues that the federal government has a unique role in setting immigration policy for the nation. Despite the fact that the US Constitution does not explicitly discuss immigration in its wording, other than to establish rules for nationalization, federal courts have established a so-called plenary power to regulate immigration on the part of federal officials (Campbell, 2010). Thus, Campbell (2010) suggests that a failure to act compassionately towards immigrants lies squarely in federal hands.

Kagan (2016) suggests that the bureaucratic and political reality is far more complicated than this summary. Firstly, President Obama, a child of an immigrant himself, was vocal in advocating for the expansion of DACA (Deferred...

…types of sweeping executive actions attempted by the Obama Administration. Arguably, only a president capitalizing upon the value of a so-called bully pulpit, particularly in the second administration tenure when reelection is no longer a factor.

Unsurprisingly, many immigration officers, deprived of the arbitrary power which they had been able to exercise previously, before the Obama Administration began to take a more aggressive hand in setting policy, were upset with the loss of their power. Kagan (2016) notes that the opposition of the ICE union was not atypical in such circumstances, where self-restraint is called for on the part of officials, in exercising their power. On the other hand, he notes that it is not entirely true that all immigration officials are heartless and intent upon separating families (Kagan, 2016). There is always a strong bureaucratic element in any type of such resistance, in the desire of officials to protect their power and the perceived importance of their workin this instance, the perceived importance of detaining immigrants.

Thus, rather than stating that the Obama Administration was either good or bad in regards to immigration, it is more important to view its policies in the context of an America where the political landscape was often solidly opposed to using executive authority to pass reforms. Although the Administrations record may still be problematic in some regards, it did make efforts to pass significant legislation that…