Since the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement that it would conduct raids targeting recent arrivals who were ordered removed or did not show up to their immigration court, the topic of deportations dominates airwaves and broadcasts.

Just last Thursday, the GOP presidential candidates capitalized on the immigration-issue during their debate, as they have in the past, to spread the fear-mongering rhetoric that has made Trump a favorite among xenophobic supporters.

While it is disturbing that GOP presidential candidates used air-time to spit anti-immigrant discourse, it’s even more staggering that Democratic presidential candidates remained silent on the issue during their own debate on Sunday and here’s why:

For the opening statements the moderator, Lester Holt from NBC, asked Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley to fill in the blank, “In my first 100 days in office my top 3 priorities will be…”

The answers were almost identical, from creating jobs to increasing the minimum wage, all three candidates echoed each other on their last debate before the Iowa primaries. Only two candidates, Clinton and O’Malley, made a brief mention of immigration in the context of reforming the system.

The #DemDebate went on for two hours and while at times it seemed like Lester Holt would throw them a curve ball on immigration, the subject (or rather the opportunity) to ask the candidates a substantial question on how they plan to address the raids and the current fear in the immigrant community never came up.

How could this be? In a moment when people in every city are afraid to leave their houses and are keeping their kids out of school because the Obama’s administration and DHS is strategically targeting immigrants who came to the U.S. fleeing from violence and armed conflict in Central America, ignoring the topic seems dumbfounded. At a minimum it was tone deaf to what immigrants and Latinos are experiencing right now, but more so, it was a missed opportunity to offer space for the candidates to capitalize on their “pro-immigrant” stances that differentiates them from the GOP.

And then, it hit me.

When party candidates remain silent on one of the most harmful policies the President (one of their own, a Democrat) has enacted, it indicates the political calculation that being silent is better than being a leader.

It was a Party calculation to not let the topic surface and dominate the democratic debate the way their counterparts in the other Party did. The mere indication of the raids would’ve pinned the candidates against their party leader. After all, you can’t talk deportations or raids without mentioning the Deporter-in-Chief’s all-time record for more deportations than any other president in U.S. history. And now with the Supreme Court set to hear the DAPA and DACA+ case sometime possibly in June, they may see no need if they can praise the President for that closer to the actual election.

The silence over deportations during the Democratic Debate was only the beginning of a Party’s attempt to re-write history and save the Latino vote. The reality of deportations and the massive raids is here now but when on stage the President and Democratic candidates will not touch that subject.

Instead, they will choose to capitalize on the Party’s bold move led by President Obama to offer temporary relief to a small sector of the immigrant community through the implementation of DAPA –that is, if SCOTUS gives a favorable decision on the case come summer. If the debate gives any indication of the political intricacy of this morning’s announcement, it won’t be long before Democratic presidential candidates give statements praising Obama’s leadership on DAPA and attacking the GOP on their anti-immigrant sentiments while leaving out this presidency’s prominent policy on immigration that resulted in over 2 million deportations (and counting).

The stakes are high with Primaries around the corner, and the current administration is walking on eggshells trying to send three messages at the same time: 1) Deporting recent arrivals to send a punitive message to Central Americans trying to come to the United States. 2) Show the Supreme Court that it’s “serious” about its enforcement and still 3) Portray itself as the antithesis of the GOP by using DAPA and DACA+ to ultimately position itself as the “pro-immigrant” party even as it sends shockwaves of fear through immigrant communities. They may want to be both the punisher and the savior, but they can’t have it both ways.

Reyna Wences is an organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations in Chicago and a 2015 fellow with Mijente for the #Not1More campaign.