Indeed, media reports have indicated that many of the migrants are coming because they believe children will not be deported. “They’re saying that women and children are allowed to stay,” a recently detained undocumented immigrant from Guatemala told Monitor correspondent Lourdes Medrano in Tucson, Ariz., Thursday.
The president is facing pressure from his political base to take new executive action on deportations. One heckler in San Francisco yelled at him during a speech last November: “You have a power to stop deportation for all undocumented immigrants in this country.” The crowd chanted: “Stop deportations! Yes we can!”
The issue is politically significant, because many Democratic-leaning groups – including Latinos – tend to skip midterm elections, and Republicans are poised to retake the Senate. If Democratic turnout is bad this November, Obama could face a Republican-held Senate and House during his final two years in office.
In 2012, DACA was seen partly as a move to get out the vote for Obama’s presidential election. This year’s deportation reforms would seem to be, at least in part, an attempt to do the same for key Senate races.
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