[nate_meurer]

I don't think the Obama comparison is very useful. Trump faces a vastly more difficult problem than Obama did. For most of his presidency, Obama simply continued the Operation Streamline era policies that he inherited from Bush. He didn't have to clean up after a previous administration that had completely lost control of the border, allowing somewhere between ten and forty million immigrants through. And Obama didn't have to contend with dozens of states and cities declaring themselves sanctuaries, completely off limits to meaningful immigration enforcement, even of criminal migrants.

My own state promptly made it illegal for local law enforcement to cooperate with border patrol or immigration enforcement agents in any circumstance.

So now, if we want our country to have meaningful borders, immigration enforcement has to be done the hard way, and it shouldn't be surprising that Kristi Noem's clown show is showing signs of clusterfuckery. It's actually surprising that things have gone as well as they have.

[elsonrodriguez]

Your argument is ultimately that it’s ok to ignore the constitution, civil rights, and human decency because it’s time to do things “the hard way”.

[frumplestlatz]

That’s not what was argued. “The hard way” refers to institutional difficulty, not illegality — specifically, enforcing federal law in the face of state non-compliance and sanctuary policies.

Difficulty does not equal unconstitutionality. If you think the measures required violate specific constitutional provisions or civil-rights protections, name them and explain how.

Otherwise, this is an empty moral reframe that clumsily sidesteps concrete claims about enforcement feasibility and changed conditions.

[slater]

> He didn't have to clean up after a previous administration

every dem president has to clean up after a republican president

[frumplestlatz]

That’s a slogan, not an argument. The point being made -- and made well, deserving of consideration -- was about institutional conditions (sanctuary laws, state non-cooperation, scale of inflows) that simply didn’t exist during Obama’s early years, regardless of party.

[nate_meurer]

When is comes to immigration in particular, that simply isn't true. As I alluded to in my comment, Obama inherited Bush's Operation Streamline immigration regime, which was running like a Swiss watch in comparison to the mess we have now. Over the course of his two terms, Obama squandered his inheritance as the progressives encroached. By election season in 2015, the progressive model was being embraced by mainstream Democrats, and was pretty plainly admitting to open-borders aspirations. In my opinion, this more than anything handed Trump his first election victory. If there was one thing that could convince the normies that we need a border wall-- whether literal or symbolic-- it was the sudden realization that the Left was serious about open borders and unlimited immigration.

And of course, not to be outdone by Obama, Joe Biden managed to lose control of the border in a manner that has no precedent in American history, once again handing Trump an easy victory. It's like they wanted to lose another election.

To grasp how radically the Democrat party has moved left on immigration, recall that Obama and Hillary Clinton ran against each other on strict immigration enforcement. Here's my favorite Hillary quote from a 2008 campaign speech:

> "If they’ve committed a crime, deport them, no questions asked. They’re gone. If they’re working and law-abiding, we should say here are the conditions for you staying: You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally, you have to pay back taxes, you have to try to learn English, and you have to wait in line."