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

by Jonathan Blitzer

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.” Obama’s questions to Muñoz grew progressively sharper. Yet, along the way, he still took positions reflecting the mainstream consensus. It was like he was wrestling with himself while Muñoz watched and rooted for the idealist to win out. From the start, though, he’d made his outlook plain: the idealist had to be yoked to the pragmatist if anything were to come of their conversations. Less clear was where the lines of pragmatism blurred into conservatism. In October 2006, just a few months after supporting an immigration-reform bill that passed the Senate, Obama joined an eighty-vote majority to greenlight the construction of seven hundred miles of fencing along the border.