Two and a half years ago, I made the following bet with Nathaniel Bechhofer:
If, by June 1, 2017, the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, or Washington Post assert that one million of more additional illegal
immigrants have actually received permission to legally work in the
United States as a result of Obama’s executive action since November,
2014, I owe Nathaniel Bechhofer $20. Otherwise he owes me $20.
David Balan joined with Bechhofer, to the tune of $100.
By Bechhofer and Balan’s mutual consent, I have now won – and they’ve both paid up. As is often the case, I wish I lost. And I think I would have lost if Obama had made immigration his top priority from the day he gained office. But I doubt it was even in his top 5. If Obama really cared about immigrants, he would have ended his presidency by pardoning the 20,000+ people in federal prison for immigration offenses, not closing the border to the victims of Cuban Communism.
READER COMMENTS
David Condon
Jun 7 2017 at 8:34pm
So with respect to Cuban immigration policy, it seems like there’s a tradeoff going on here, but it’s not entirely clear what that tradeoff is. This is one of the things I hate about analyzing foreign policy is that we’re always guessing based on partial information. So let’s take a simple comparison. What if the choice is between wet foot, dry foot with Cuba or free trade with Cuba? Which is better? I have no idea how to answer that question.
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