On February 17, 2009, the recently inaugurated President Obama gave a telephone interview on the Spanish language radio show “El Piolín por la manana.” On the show—less than one month after taking office—he told the open borders lobby that he was “very committed” to amnesty, and that “we’ve got some wonderful people on my White House staff who are working on this issue on an ongoing basis.”
He concluded: “I’ve got to focus on the economy, I’ve got to focus on housing, and sure that people feel a little bit more secure; at the same time, get the various immigrant rights groups together and have them start providing some advice in terms of what strategies we’re going to pursue in Congress.”
His statements about strategies in Congress aside, in fact, his first term action on immigration largely bypassed Congress altogether, and, rather, carried out his immigration goals through unilateral and unlawful administration actions. Beginning in 2011, the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) began to implement formal measures through a series of memos issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton. These “Morton Memos” granted administrative amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens in the United States.
Read more about Obama’s unilateral amnesty throughout his term at: FAIR’s President Obama’s Record of Dismantling Immigration Enforcement.
