Pictures can define presidents.
For George W. Bush, it was these images of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, overwhelming New Orleans, and then the president himself.
This picture, taken in Air Force One, made him look distant and uncaring. And this comment to his emergency manager… “Brownie you’re doing a heckuva job,” said Bush, made him look incompetent.
Now we’re all looking at these pictures of Central American children and adults walking across the border–more than 1,000 a week–making it look like the United States doesn’t just have a broken immigration system…but no system at all.
And these pictures have already led a Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar from Texas to say “I hope this does not become Obama’s ‘Katrina moment.’
Cuellar is calling on the president to visit the border when he’s in Texas tomorrow:
“With all due respect, I think he still is one step behind. They knew this was happening a year ago, last year, and again they’re just not reacting fast enough at this time, ” said Rep. Cuellar.
But the president has no plans to go to the border, and this may be the reason why:
“Whatever we do administratively is not going to be sufficient to solve a broken immigration system,” said President Obama.
But ignoring the border crisis will not end it:
“What we want from the president is that he doesn’t deport those kids,” said Gustavo Torres, executive director of a Maryland-based immigration advocacy group.
“U.S. citizens have to pay higher taxes in order to support these people. It’s just not fair. We can’t take care of our own,” said Nancy Grayson, a resident of Murietta, CA.
The president can’t avoid making a choice, because not visiting the border is a choice.
He’s going to get criticized no matter what he does, so I believe he should go to the border, and see for himself what’s happening there, and say again what he stands for.
Because this is about his legacy.