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.

As early as tomorrow, January 15th, 2016, the Supreme Court is expected to decide whether or not it will hear the deferred action injunction case.  It’s an important step in the battle to see the relief the President announced in November, 2014 for undocumented parents of US citizens and some of the childhood arrivals who were over the age of 32 when DACA was announced.

But the Supreme Court is not the only place for action on immigration. President Obama has options for immediate steps he can take to reduce the suffering caused by current immigration policy and to take a more humane approach. But this year, he’s so far done the opposite.

Some believe the raids that have unleashed renewed terror in immigrant communities are actually the President’s strategy to show the Supreme Court he’s serious about his “priorities.” But you never stop deportations by deporting people.  When the administration targets people for raids, it casts suspicion over the entire community and reinforces criminalization. With Trump poisoning the public conversation with fear and enlivening a frightening far-right base, it’s even more urgent for the President to make concrete advances to move the debate and policy in the opposite direction.

The best way to win legalization and relief is through the Administration doing everything in its power to demonstrate what that looks like, to show that we are valued members of society not disposable quota-filling statistics, and to demonstrate that abuse is unacceptable.

The President could show that commitment to the immigrant community today by putting a halt to the raids that are terrorizing immigrant communities since the new year. In addition to that, we take you back to the re-release of five steps the President could move on immediately:

1. Release Transgender and LGBTQ Detainees and End Immigrant Detention. Transgender immigrants are 1 in 500 detainees but 1 in 5 who are sexually assaulted in detention. ICE cannot keep anyone safe in a detention system built on cruelty and profit but that is especially true for gender non-conforming detainees. While they face disproportionate violence in detention, every person who enters ICE custody is vulnerable to its abuses. Numerous suspicious deaths and suicides have been reported in detention centers, prompting unanswered calls for investigation and reform. Towards that goal, the President could urge Congress to eliminate the arbitrary detention bed quota, it can direct the Department of Justice to guide judges to lower bonds, and can direct the Department of Homeland Security to eliminate or drastically reduce the use of detention.

    

2. End all ICE Access Programs Involving ICE and Local-Law Enforcement Collaboration including the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), all 287-(g) agreements and the Criminal Alien Program (CAP). These programs use local law enforcement as an extension of deportations and detention, urging communication between local agencies and DHS. They also cultivate racial profiling by local law enforcement agencies and further endanger over-policed communities. Just as the President ramped up these programs during most of his administration, he can diminish or end them. PEP was created by DHS, and just as the agency ended the infamous Secure Communities program, it can put an end to PEP, a directive that the President can give. CAP is also a discretionary operation that relies on jail access to records. Instead of increasing access  and actively asking Congress for more funding, the President could direct DHS to dial back the program.

    

3. Ensure Human, Labor, and Civil Rights with Protections for Whistleblowers within Immigration Enforcement. In the month of October alone there were hunger strikes by detainees in Louisiana, California, and two Texas detention centers, with several still going, asking to be released and highlighting abuses and medical neglect by guards. At each of these hunger strikes there have been testimonies of harsh retaliation,including deportation of leaders and isolation of hunger strike participants. Beyond those in ICE custody, even individuals who have official civil rights claims that led to investigations by DHS or workers who have open labor claims have been kept in detention and deported. The President has the power to direct DHS to use deferred action and release individuals who come forward to file civil, labor, or human rights complaints – especially when they are about the immigration enforcement agencies themselves; individual who are detained by immigration authorities during a labor strike; and individuals involved in a pending matter before a federal agency in which they are participating/providing evidence.

    

4. End Operation Streamline and Stop Criminal Prosecutions of Immigrants for Crossing the Border. Operation Streamline sentences thousands of immigrants to serve criminal sentences for crossing the border in a process that has been described as a violation of due process and human rights. It was created by the Executive branch, which can also ended. Over the last year of the Obama administration, prosecutions for immigrants for entering the country have also risen and alarmingly have appeared as a tactic to retaliate against public organizing efforts. Obama and the Department of Justice have the constitutional authority not only to decline to prosecute, but to pardon any and all violations of criminal immigration laws—in advance or after the fact, for any reason or no reason at all, on an individual or a categorical basis.

    

5. Apply Sentencing and Incarceration Reforms Taking Place in the Criminal Justice System to the Immigration System. At the same time there is an effort to reform the criminal justice system to decrease incarceration rates and unfair sentencing caused by the Drug War, immigration enforcement is aggressively pursuing the detention and deportation of immigrants with similar charges. Just recently the Department of Justice announced that out of 6,000 people being released from federal prison, about 2,000 would be deported. The President could direct the Department of Homeland Security to re-examine its deportation and detention priorities to include the same considerations being made within the criminal justice reform discussion.

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