PRESS RELEASE
Revolt Against ‘Deporter-in-Chief’ Just Hours Before State of the Union
Jan. 13, 2016 (EIRNS)—Congressional Democrats, according to reports in the Capital press, revolted against Barack Obama’s deportation raids on families, just before he tried to talk the Congress and the country into submission on Tuesday night.
Not accidentally, Obama’s State of the Union speech skipped immigration policy entirely. That afternoon, 140 Democratic House Members had sent him a letter sharply protesting the ongoing deportation raids he ordered, and had then held a press conference to make the letter public. This included the whole House Democratic leadership, and was flanked by Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid. The size of the press conference showed the anger building against Obama in the party on this matter.
"We are gravely concerned that the [Administration] may have already removed mothers and children from the United States and returned them to violent and dangerous situations in their own countries,"
the letter was quoted in the Washington Post.
Recent immigrants from Central America, legal and illegal, are fleeing from powerful criminal syndicates which make life nearly as dangerous for families there, as in Iraq or Syria. More than 100,000 families, and other unaccompanied children, have come within the past year. The Obama White House has put out a "deport felons, not families" slogan for show, but has been raiding households and deporting families in fact.
A national campaign against this has called Obama "Deporter-in-Chief."
The Post reported
"The letter and planned news conference so annoyed Administration officials that they sent White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston to Capitol Hill for a tense mid-day meeting. Eggleston only managed to delay the Democrats’ press conference for a couple of hours; Democrats said Obama’s "arguments were unconvincing."
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, met with Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnston, and then said, "You’re going to find a pause in these deportations." That remains to be seen, but evidently Reid is angry enough to be determined to stop them.
