WikiLeaks: Obama Supported Building A Fence To Improve Border Security"... it makes sense as a matter of security ..."
by Charles Campbell November 16, 2016 at 7:27am
It appears Barack Obama changed his tune on immigration throughout his tenure as president.
A leaked internal memo from Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign shows that he supported building a wall along the southern border — something he has now taken a hard stance against in light of President-elect Donald Trump’s message of strong immigration enforcement.
The Obama memo was made public by Wikileaks and is dated Sept. 7, 2008.
“Securing our borders will not solve the illegal immigration problem in isolation, but combined with an earned path to citizenship for the undocumented and new legal alternatives to unauthorized entry, some additional fencing could help get the border under control,” states the memo.
Under a section titled “Fencing,” it was clear that Obama believed a physical barrier, though not stopping all illegal immigration, would at least make illegal entry in the country difficult.
“[Obama] supports physical fencing along the border under very specific circumstances, where it makes sense as a matter of security and to act as a deterrent to unsafe undocumented entry,” the memo says. “Additional fencing on the border is not a comprehensive solution, but it sometimes helps deter people from taking the risk of entering illegally.”
The Democratic president also took a hard-line stance towards making sure the various agencies which enforce immigration laws were properly supported.
The memo says Obama “supports additional personnel, infrastructure, and technology on the border and at our ports of entry.”
The memo also addresses Obama’s belief that “fencing should be built where necessary and agreed to in coordination with local governments, Indian tribes and done in an environmentally sensitive manner.”
During his two terms, Obama did not do much to achieve his listed “core goals” of immigration reform. The president has often come into conflict with border patrol, and a backlog in immigration courts has doubled under his administration.
The president of the National Border Patrol Council testified before the Senate in May that Obama’s immigration policies were responsible for the influx of illegal immigration into the Unites States.
“Most illegal immigrants believe that they will either not be caught, or even if they are caught, they will not be deported back to their home country. Most believe that they will simply be issued a Notice to Appear and will be released,” Brandon Judd said before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest. “Candidly, they are not wrong.”
Most of Obama’s legacy on immigration has been of the open-borders variety, a far cry away from what he originally proposed.
Last November, Obama strongly criticized Trump’s plan to enlist a deportation force. “Nobody thinks that that is realistic,” the president said then. “But more importantly, that’s not who we are as Americans.”
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