Thread by @Noahpinion

1/I would like to talk about the difference between Obama's immigration enforcement regime and Trump's.

https://twitter.com/TalKopan/status/1073601181526777857

2/My sister, who is now a civil rights lawyer, once worked for the Department of Justice deporting undocumented immigrants who had committed crimes. So I got to hear a lot about how Obama's deportation policy worked.

3/Obama raised deportations to record levels.

But he focused on deporting two very specific types of unauthorized immigrants:
1. people who had just crossed the border
2. people who committed crimes other than immigrating illegally.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama…

4/This made sense.

People who had just crossed the border hadn't had time to establish families and lives in America. So deporting them was much more humane than deporting people who had been here for a long time.

5/And deporting unauthorized immigrants who committed crimes made sense, because it selected the type of unauthorized immigrants who got to stay in the country - i.e., people who were extremely well-behaved.

6/Now, this policy was still too harsh, because unauthorized immigrants were sometimes deported for nonviolent offenses like marijuana possession. It was because of these sorts of cases that my sister quit working at DOJ.

7/But overall, the principle was sound.

Do you know how well-behaved of a person you have to be to live in America for 20, 30, or 40 years, and be working class, and NEVER be arrested, not even for a DUI?

You have to be pretty darn well-behaved.

8/Thus, Obama's deportation policy basically turned illegal immigration into SELECTIVE immigration. It made sure that well-behaved people stayed and people who were inclined to break the rules had to leave.

9/Now, this is a very CONSERVATIVE policy! This is not a liberal policy regime at all.

It assumes that countries have a right and a duty to enforce their borders. It assumes that well-behaved people are more desirable. Etc. etc.

But did Obama get any kudos from the Right? NO!

10/Obama offered America a conservative deal on immigration: Strong border enforcement, and deportation of non-well-behaved unauthorized immigrants, in exchange for tolerance of well-behaved unauthorized immigrants.

And the Right totally rejected that deal.

11/The Right demanded much more than Obama's conservative immigration regime.

They demanded mass deportation of well-behaved unauthorized immigrants.

And under Trump, and with Trump's barbaric ICE, they're starting to get it.

12/Why did the Right reject Obama's conservative immigration regime and demand maximal deportation?

There can be only one reason: Race.

claremont.org/crb/basicpage/…

13/When people on the Left call Trump's immigration policy "ethnic cleansing", they're not just being hyperbolic.

They're trying to put a name to the only reasonable conclusion: That Trump and his base are desperate to white-ify the American electorate as much as they can.

14/The Left can (and did) grudgingly accept Obama's conservative bargain on immigration. Yes, some activists protested his regime. But overall, Democrats accepted it.

But the Left can NEVER accept an immigration regime designed to expel nonwhite people en masse.

15/So the Right has taken a big gamble with Trump.

If his policy somehow succeeds, he'll white-ify the electorate enough to drown the Left's protests.

But if - as looks likely - it does NOT succeed, the Left will NOT go back to the conservative Obama bargain on immigration.

16/The Right could have sat quietly by and watched illegal immigration go in reverse, and let Obama deport record numbers of people, and be satisfied with that partial victory.

But no. Instead, they went for broke, and the nation will now feel the consequences.

(end)

Here's some more evidence, btw. Obama increased criminal deportations dramatically compared Bush, but decreased non-criminal deportations (and shifted much of the latter to the border, i.e. recent arrivals).