This immigration raid, the first major one of his second term, could not have been more ill-timed. U.S. President Barack Obama has used Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out the largest immigration raid as part of his policy of going after businesses that “knowingly” hire the undocumented. This may be a slight change from the immigration raids of the former Bush presidency, but it is in my view not much of an improvement. This immigration raid was conducted against the franchise Danny’s Car Wash in Phoenix, Arizona. To put it mildly, all Latino organizations in Arizona are up in arms against this raid. To have conducted such a raid in a state with a large Latino population could prove to be political suicide for the Democratic Party.

                                                If Obama is trying to prove to the largely Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives that he can be “tough” on immigration in order to get his immigration reform legislation through, the U.S. House could care less. For many Latino organizations, they may now be having second thoughts about helping Obama in his second term with immigration reform or just about anything else the president may do. With immigration reform stalled, the Democrats and the White House need all the help they can get. This certainly will work against Obama and the Democrats. It will also not help Obama with regards to big and small businesses. A growing number of businesses are conducting passive resistance to Obama’s health care reform. If they feel they will be the targets of further immigration raids, then they will throw more support than before behind the struggling Republican Party.

                                                 And this is where the danger is. President Obama may not need to worry about reelection, but all of those Democratic senators and house representatives do come 2014. Obama might lose the entire U.S. Congress to the Republicans, and then you can be sure that Obama’s presidency is dead . It is a trend I have seen in his first presidential term, and I am seeing it happen again. I am seeing inconsistency in how Obama conducts everything—from international politics to his domestic policies, it all seems totally contradictory and the acts of a rank amateur. Some things he may get right, but it seems he is still getting too many things wrong. With acts like this, Obama is alienating Latinos when he will need them the most. I am not sure that Obama will understand the full fallout of his actions as they will affect the congressional elections, or his presidency.