The United States is a nation of immigrants. The United States’ greatness comes from the advantages that immigration offered throughout the entirety of its history. There's no getting around that fact. However, it is not true that America has always been friendly to immigrants. Suggesting the contrary entails ignoring dark moments of American history and forgetting about millions of victims of immigration policies that came from Washington. In light of Donald Trump’s administration controversial repeal of DACA, the debate around the repercussions of the policy set during the Obama administration has reignited and with it, the dangerous rhetoric that overlooks significant moments of America’s history.

The acceptance of such rhetoric involves forgetting that in 1954 Operation Wetback resulted in the deportation of around 1.1 million Braceros, many of whom were legal residents in the US. It requires neglecting FDR’s Executive Order 9066, which forced around 110,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII to either live in concentration camps or repatriation. It means erasing from our memories the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned the vast majority of Chinese immigrants from entering the United States in the mid 19th century. It implies forgetting the implications of the 1923 Supreme Court’s case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind for Indian immigrants –who were disenfranchised on the grounds of one man's skin color.

Using distorted historical perspectives as the foundations of political arguments in favor of immigration policies like DACA is nothing less than cheap post-truth politics –one of the greatest issues surrounding Donald Trump’s administration. It renders the moral high ground on which many of the current administration's detractors situate themselves inexistent and further empowers those who seek to enforce anti-immigration policies. What’s more, it discredits a myriad of valuable opinions from prominent political figures that favor DACA for they rely on partial-truths to deliver their views. It is a shame to discredit strong viewpoints just like that, given that DACA is a step in the right direction regarding immigration policy. Truth is, policies like DACA deserve better.

Barack Obama’s rhetoric, for instance, would result somewhat affected were we to analyze it under the proposed lens. Obama’s speeches mislead people to believe that America has always welcomed immigrants. The manipulative wordplay distorts America’s historical reality through the merger of the real notion of immigration's significance to the country with the attitude that its people have historically adopted towards immigrants.

“On the one hand, we’ve always defined ourselves as a nation of immigrants –a nation that welcomes those willing to embrace America’s precepts.” –Barack Obama, Transcript of President Obama's Immigration Address at American University,

“And whether our forbearers were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like or what our last names are, or how we worship.” – Barack Obama, November 20, 2014.

“Our Founders conceived of this country as a refuge for the world. And for more than two centuries, welcoming wave after wave of immigrants has kept us youthful and dynamic and entrepreneurial.” – Barack Obama, June 23, 2016. Remarks on the Supreme Court Decision on U.S. Versus Texas.

Obama’s words are not entirely false for it is true that “to be an American is about something more than what we look like or what our last names are, or how we worship.” It is also true that “immigrants have kept [America] youthful and dynamic and entrepreneurial.” Nonetheless, the full ideas on the speeches are only half-true, which is not enough when it comes to the defense of policies like DACA.

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion columnist, William McGurn, sheds light onto deeper issues surrounding the former POTUS' position on immigration and how his past discredits it. In the article “The Cruelty of Barack Obama,” he highlights the historical duplicity that underlies Obama’s posture towards policies that resemble DACA. McGurn writes that Obama “sabotaged” a bipartisan immigration policy endorsed by Ted Kennedy and George Bush. Moreover, he suggests that the former POTUS had a second chance to enforce immigration policies when he had enough votes, throughout the first two years of his first term, and yet he did nothing. McGurn further claims that it was all “topped off” during the second half of his term when he argued that enforcing policies with the scope that the situation required was beyond his constitutional power.

“Truth is, no man has done more to poison the possibilities for fixing America’s broken immigration system than our 44th president. Mr. Obama’s double-dealing begins with his time as junior senator from Illinois (…)”

McGurn's arguments, while valid, compel us to ponder the extent to which we should judge policymakers and their political stances based on their character. After all, Obama was America's only real hope concerning the deployment of the necessary measures to empower those who would become beneficiaries of DACA.

Today, we should gear the rhetoric that backs initiatives that favor immigrants towards the remembrance of those who suffered in the past, and the need to tailor migratory policy in ways that allow the nation to embrace immigration as well as to avoid tragedies from staining American history anytime in the future. When it comes to defending critical policies such as DACA, we ought to remember that it is not enough to try to appeal to a sense of responsibility towards a false notion of American historical precedents on immigration. After all, no matter how noble the nature of a policy is, advocating for it on the grounds of partial-truths or lies will never be justified.