Castaneda: Call off the Hunt

Jorge Castaneda contributed an op-ed to the NY Times yesterday:

There are myriad claims to Barack Obama’s attention, and the list will only grow before Jan. 20. But immigration reform and, more immediately, putting an end to the outgoing administration’s unfortunate and inhuman immigration enforcement policy should be high on the president-elect’s list.
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But even without comprehensive reform, Mr. Obama can make a huge difference in the lives of millions of undocumented migrants in the United States today. Since late 2006, the Bush administration has been carrying out the “tough love” side of immigration reform without the generous and open-arms side, which would mean legalization for those in the United States today, and a migrant worker program for those it will need tomorrow.

It has pursued a humiliating and hostile policy of persecution and harassment of illegal Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans and many others. It changed the rules of the game without any warning or empathy, nor with the traditional understanding the United States has shown, more often than not over the past century, in regard to those who cross its borders without papers. Click here for the entire piece.

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