The Venezuelans left in limbo by new US immigration plan – Politico By John D. Sutter
Published March 20. 2014 12:01AM
Updated March 20. 2014 1:15AM
WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama took office in 2009, and then left office in 2014, he made immigration one of his key foreign policy themes.
He used a speech to the National Council of Churches in 2009 to make the case that foreign aid was not a sufficient response to human misery. His final State of the Union address of 2012 emphasized the need to address the “gene pool” that kept Americans of different backgrounds apart.
And in his final address before leaving office, Obama said of the plight of refugees from Syria and Yemen: “It is not just a moral decision. It is a policy decision.”
Those were the issues he spoke about repeatedly, and on which he took action. Obama made no effort to keep his promise to close the U.S. border in the 2012 political campaign, instead he used his remaining months in the White House chiefly to make immigration his signature issue, and to campaign on it.
Obama made immigration one of his key foreign policy themes in the first years of his presidency. He made the issue his signature foreign policy priority in 2010 and 2012, including in his final State of the Union Address in 2012.
But in the first eight months of his presidency, President Obama did not take steps that would close the U.S.’s border with Mexico.
That is because the president had been focused on health care, and on the domestic economy, and had not made immigration his primary consideration.
So now the American people are about to become the first in nearly fifty years to put immigration in the top three issues the next president has to address.
Even so, President Obama, unlike his predecessor, did not keep his promise of making the issue the priority of his presidency.
Obama made immigration one of the top priorities when he ran for president, and he made it one of the top priorities of his presidency.
He campaigned on it as a key issue. While campaigning,
