OBAMA CONTINUES SAME HARSH POLICY TOWARDS IMMIGRANTS

Why don't we see a change in immigration policy from the time of George W. Bush to the administration of Barack Obama? It seems like the harsh policy of Bush/Chertoff/Julie Myers is still in effect - raiding work places, finding undocumented workers, arresting them, deporting them.

Julia Preston writes in today's The New York Times about the continuation of policy with Janet Napolitano as head of the Homeland Security Department:

"The administration recently undertook audits of employee paperwork at hundreds of businesses, expanded a program to verify worker immigration status that has been widely criticized as flawed, bolstered a program of cooperation between federal and local law enforcement agencies, and rejected proposals for legally binding rules governing conditions in immigration detention centers.

"“We are expanding enforcement, but I think in the right way,” Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said in an interview."

Why is Napolitano "expanding enforcement?" Undocumented immigrants have been locked up, separated from their children, forbidden to hold a job, deported to their original countries while their spouses and children become impoverished.

Instead of expanding enforcement Homeland Security needs to relax its iron fist and stop trying to deport hundreds and thousands. America needs to show some compassion and empathy to those undocumenteds who come to the U.S. to better the economic position of their families, to put bread on the table for their children.

Does Obama know what is happening? Does he approve of the "expanding enforcement?" Does he really want the policy of his administration to center on arrest, detention and deportation?