Having hit his stride in the polls, Barack Obama seems to clutch
the teleprompter less tightly these days. He looked relaxed as he
addressed the subject of “immigration reform” on Tuesday and even
attempted a semi-cavalier joke at the expense of those concerned
about America’s porous borders. “Maybe they’ll need a moat,” he
said, dismissing their calls for more border security. “Maybe they
want alligators in the moat.”
George W. Bush had broached the idea of de facto amnesty
shortly before 9/11, then the subject vanished. A joke about
alligators in moats wouldn’t have been welcome in the days after
Osama bin Laden hit the country. But now that he is gone, Obama can
make one and try his hand at the issue of illegal
immigration.
In his speech in El Paso, he downplayed concerns about
border insecurity while insisting that he has responded to them
effectively: “the truth is the measures we’ve put in place are
getting results. Over the past two and a half years, we’ve seized
31 percent more drugs, 75 percent more currency, 64 percent more
weapons than ever before. And even as we have stepped up
patrols, apprehensions along the border have been cut by nearly 40
percent from two years ago. That means far fewer people are
attempting to cross the border illegally.”
Would he have done any of this on his own without the
political backlash to open borders? No, but he sounds at times as
if he did. He followed, not led, on the issue, yet says those who
saw a problem on the borders where he didn’t are still crying
wolf.
The crowd to whom he was appealing with his moat joke
found his listing of border security accomplishments beside the
point. As he began to say that he had complied with requests to
build a fence, an audience member shouted, “Tear it down.” As he
referenced those calling for more measures, another audience member
shouted, “They’re racist.”
Later in the speech, Obama invited this audience to “add
your voices to this debate” and “sign up to help at
whitehouse.gov.”
Obama presents himself as a forthright leader of
“immigration reform” even as he avoids defining reform in open
terms. Still having to follow the public a bit, he has to couch his
calls for what amounts to selective amnesty between vaguely
reassuring lines about the importance of enforcing the law and the
“responsibility” that illegal immigrants bear. This sounds like he
wants current laws enforced, but he doesn’t, at least not
consistently. He considers these laws unjust and wants them
discarded. That’s what is meant by reform.
Another rhetorical sleight of hand in the speech was to
mix the issue of illegal immigration into a safer enthusiasm for
America as a nation of immigrants. To oppose “reform” that
accommodates illegal immigration is not to deny the benefits of
legal immigration. But Obama tries to leave that
implication.
“[T]he flow of immigrants has helped make this country
stronger and more prosperous. We can point to the genius of
Einstein, the designs of I.M. Pei, the stories of Isaac Asimov, the
entire industries that were forged by Andrew Carnegie,” he said, as
if to place the flow of illegal immigrants on the same
plane.
One would think a speech in El Paso might have honed in on
the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico, but Obama seemed more
interested in talking about immigrants in the high-tech industry,
as if the issue under discussion was whether or not to let geniuses
from India and Asian countries work at Google.
“We should make it easier for the best and the brightest
to not only stay here, but also to start businesses and create jobs
here. In recent years, a full 25 percent of high-tech startups in
the U.S. were founded by immigrants,” he said. “That led to 200,000
jobs here in America. I’m glad those jobs are here. I want to see
more of them created in this country. We need to provide them the
chance.”
Opposition to “comprehensive immigration reform” is hardly
stuck on that issue, but it is easier for Obama to push on open
doors like that one than to talk about the real problems of an open
border.
