Obama Administration Implements Non-Enforcement Policy
Based on the president’s first six weeks in office, the April edition of FAIR’s Immigration Report began to connect the dots and sketch out the Obama administration’s immigration policy. "With or without [amnesty] legislation, the administration is sending unmistakable signals to illegal aliens that they will not vigorously enforce laws against illegal immigration," we observed.
Since that time, "unmistakable signals" have been translated into unmistakable deeds, all leading to the inescapable conclusion that not only won’t the administration vigorously enforce laws against illegal immigration, but their intent is to dismantle immigration enforcement programs altogether. Following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite enforcement action in Bellingham, Washington, in late February, the administration stated publicly that such actions are under review.
By the end of March the review was over and so, apparently, is worksite enforcement. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano signaled in late March that the arrest of illegal alien workers would be abandoned in favor of going after employers only. A planned enforcement action against a military-related facility in Chicago, suspected of employing hundreds of illegal aliens, was called off. Even more pointedly, DHS released 27 of the 28 illegal aliens nabbed in the Bellingham enforcement action and issued them work permits and the right to remain in the country for an indefinite period.
Napolitano indicated that the administration will focus its enforcement efforts on businesses and executives responsible for employing illegal aliens. How the government will be able to prosecute businesses and executives for employing illegal aliens without conducting worksite enforcement is not clear. Nor is it clear how ICE plans to carry out enforcement actions against company executives, while ignoring the illegal workers on the factory floor or the construction site.
While DHS was reviewing and gutting worksite enforcement, the president was busy appointing illegal alien advocates to key positions in his administration. With the nomination of Thomas Perez to head up the civil rights division of the Department of Justice and Esther Olavarria as a deputy assistant secretary of DHS, the upper echelons of the Obama administration have now been filled with individuals who are openly hostile to any sort of immigration enforcement.
What distinguishes the actions of the Obama administration from those of its predecessors is that the president is affirmatively dismantling existing immigration enforcement programs and infrastructure. While Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did little to enforce immigration laws when they assumed power, their inaction was merely a perpetuation of the status quo.
The status quo inherited by President Obama, on the other hand, was one in which ICE was successfully carrying out enforcement actions against businesses, prosecuting employers, deporting illegal workers, and discouraging other employers from hiring illegal aliens. In the case of the current president, not enforcing worksite immigration laws required a deliberate and calculated change in direction.
The Obama administration’s policy of non-enforcement will not go unchallenged in Congress or by organizations like FAIR that have worked hard to promote sensible enforcement of U.S. immigration policies. Secretary Napolitano’s announcement that worksite enforcement would be curtailed drew immediate concern from key members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who urged the administration to maintain efforts to rescue American jobs from illegal aliens.
FAIR, too, has been waging a national effort to keep the heat on the administration to protect the jobs of U.S. workers. In the media, and through our national network of immigration reformers, FAIR will make sure that the president and Congress hear the voices of the American public.
May 2009
