Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

by Jonathan Blitzer

that Obama had been the senator wielding the gavel. They had first met in 2006, and he had begun calling her for policy advice during the congressional debates on immigration that winter and spring. There were certain patterns in his thinking—less ideological stances than an overall sensibility—that distinguished him from the usual Democratic crowd. The first was what Muñoz would later call his “civil rights instincts”: a group of people was excluded from basic services and subject to racial profiling. At the same time, he pushed Muñoz to bolster his intuitive arguments against predictable counterpoints. “Help me explain how more immigrants coming in doesn’t mean fewer jobs for people,” he said. Would American workers be displaced? What if the US government couldn’t manage its own border? How could he address these questions without fixating on them? He had a few trademark formulations when they sparred during briefings. One was to say: “I get the reflexive progressive position on this but tell me why it’s not a problem for this other reason.” Another was: “OK, I hear you. Now you tell me how I should explain that to people in Southern Illinois.”