2

Back in 2010, Obama remarked that ignoring the laws and suspending deportation of illegal immigrants might lead to a surge in illegal immigration.

For example, there are those in the immigrants’ rights community who have argued passionately that we should simply provide those who are [here] illegally with legal status, or at least ignore the laws on the books and put an end to deportation until we have better laws. And often this argument is framed in moral terms: Why should we punish people who are just trying to earn a living?

I recognize the sense of compassion that drives this argument, but I believe such an indiscriminate approach would be both unwise and unfair. It would suggest to those thinking about coming here illegally that there will be no repercussions for such a decision. And this could lead to a surge in more illegal immigration. And it would also ignore the millions of people around the world who are waiting in line to come here legally.

Then in June 2012, Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The DACA went into effect in August.

Has there been a surge in illegal immigration since implementing the DACA?

Improve this question
13
  • 2
    @DA., you have a strange definition of "out-of-context." I don't understand why you think his quote has no bearing. A prominent politician made a claim about the effects of putting and end to deportation, a policy change prevented the deportation of 0.5 million . How does that have no bearing on the question? how this could be a duplicate of "can the president create executive orders," this question isn't a question of if something is legal, but what effects it caused. I am sure the DHS has numbers before and after the DACA went online.
    – user1873
    Nov 23, 2014 at 7:38
  • 1
    @user1873 I agree with DA, I don't see the relevance of the quote here. DACA didn't end deportation, so talking about the effects of ending deportation isn't really relevant. However, I don't agree that this is a duplicate. It is a different question.
    – Publius
    Nov 23, 2014 at 7:56
  • 1
    @Avi, You don't think so? "individuals whose cases are deferred will not be removed from the United States for a two year period, subject to renewal, and may also receive employment authorization." That might make another good question, if the administration renews the 0.5+ million every two years indefinitely, would he be failing to faithfully execute the law?
    – user1873
    Nov 23, 2014 at 8:05
  • 1
    @user1873 the 2 things that background information in your question needs to do are: 1. Help people in answering the question, 2. Help Googlers to match this question to the information that they're searching for. The quote helps neither of those things. It's really just dead weight
    – Sam I am says Reinstate Monica
    Nov 24, 2014 at 1:03
  • 2
    @SamIam - they also need to establish notability - the reason why the question even needs to be asked. A quote from Rush Limbaugh would be dismissed as partisan BS by the same people downvoting now. A no-quote would be downvoted because "there's no reason to believe there's a surge". This goes back to my assertion that in practice, you can't win if your question's answer is not a positive for left wing here, in terms of voting. There will ALWAYS be someone willing to find some excuse for downvoting that sounds very high-handed.
    – user4012
    Nov 24, 2014 at 11:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

There has been a surge since the implementation of DACA. In 2014, tens of thousands of immigrants, many of them children, entered America illegally. Most were seeking to escape increasing drug violence in Central America. Many immigrants were also mislead by rumors of permisos, documents that would allow children entering the United States illegally to reside there permanently. However, no such documents exist.

Because this surge occurred largely in 2014, and the DACA only applies to children who had arrived here before June of 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program does not apply to immigrants who entered during the surge.

Improve this answer
7
  • 4
    Or to use the terminology: The push factors increased, the pull factors were not affected by the DACA. Also a fact I don't see mentioned that often: There isn't that much of a surge - the markup of immigrants have changed. THe numbers are really low compared to the 90ies dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ois_rfa_fr_2013.pdf
    – user45891
    Nov 23, 2014 at 14:44
  • 1
    @user45891 Yeah, that would be a reasonable description. I don't like this question because it is trying to imply a casual connection between DACA And the immigrant surge where none exists.
    – Publius
    Nov 23, 2014 at 18:40
  • @user45891 - the answer CLEALY states that the pull factors increased because of DACA - there are rumours of benefits to enter illegally which rumours are clearly based on DACA. The fact that those rumours are false/inaccurate is irrelevant to this Q&A, as the truthiness of them has zero impact on the decision making of people entering illegally believing them to be true.
    – user4012
    Nov 24, 2014 at 11:44
  • @user45891 - also, comparing to 90s is 100% wrong (I'd say disingenuous) as the overall immigration plummeted post 2008 due to economics issues (i.e. job market in USA). You need to compare to post 2009 period
    – user4012
    Nov 24, 2014 at 11:47
  • @DVK. Yep. Joe Biden had to correct misinformation coming from the coyotes, "Finally and critically, all of us in our meetings today agreed to work to counter and correct the misinformation smugglers are propagating about U.S. immigration policy, and discourage families from sending their children on this perilous journey."
    – user1873
    Nov 24, 2014 at 14:50

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .