In June, president Obama pledged that he would take executive action to ease the plight of undocumented people facing deportation. Exactly what action Obama had in mind isn’t known. I suspect it never was very substantial – but it raised hopes.

Now the White House has announced that there will be no action until after the November congressional elections. The move is widely seen as capitulation to Democrats who fear that their Republican opponents will cast them as pro-immigrant.

Cristina Jimenez, managing director for United We Dream, an advocacy coalition for immigrants, called it “a slap in the face of the Latino and immigrant communities”.

Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org, called it a “betrayal”.

Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, said, “Today we are deeply disheartened that the dreams of hard-working immigrant families who have long contributed to the fabric of American life remain in jeopardy … countless families continue to wait in the shadows of fear.”

Before Obama’s administration ends, there will have been between two and three million deportations – more than under any other president. Young immigrant rights advocates call Obama “the deporter in chief”.

These deportations tear families apart. Constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War guaranteed that anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen. Many of those deported are parents of such children. Right wing pundits are calling for the repeal of this constitutional provision.

In the period from July 2010 to mid-October 2012, more than 200,000 deportations were of parents with US-born children, according to official figures.

The deportations create fear among the undocumented, which is their purpose.

There are some 11 million workers without papers in the US. They have been here years and decades. The capitalists who employ them want them to stay in the US, but they want them to be without rights. The mass deportations serve to keep these workers in a state of fear, underscoring that they have no legal rights. Thus they can be super-exploited, with lower wages, longer hours, worse conditions and fear of fighting back.

This situation drives down wages and conditions for all workers, a plus for the bosses. In the present conditions of high unemployment, immigrants become scapegoats, the far right charging that they “take American jobs” and are a drain on social services.

When attention was drawn to the children crossing the border as refugees from deplorable conditions in their home countries, there were white racist mobs screaming at them to “Get Out!” and worse.

Right wing TV and radio shows charged that the children were the advance guard of an “invasion” from Central America and were bringing diseases into the US, including Ebola.

Republicans running in the upcoming elections are campaigning on fear of Latinos and Blacks, pandering openly to white racism. The anti-immigrant drive is part of that. Some Democrats join in.

What about the mainstream Democrats? Obama decries Republican refusal to adopt “comprehensive immigration reform” already passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

What is this “comprehensive immigration reform”? First of all, it means further militarising the border with Mexico. There are already 20,000 members of the Border Patrol there, the largest number in history. Their number is scheduled by the “reform” to increase to 40,000.

There are walls and fences and a system of immigration detention centres that didn’t exist 15 years ago. More than 350,000 people spend some time in such centres every year.

The Senate bill will allocate an extra $47 billion for a “border surge”. The Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) says this will “significantly increase border deaths as unauthorised crossers brave even more harrowing and dangerous circumstances”.

It will also “cause civil rights violations of US border residents. 40,000 border guards buttressed by electronic surveillance equipment and dozens of drones will ‘occupy’ border communities combing for ‘undocumented immigrant’ profiles that are practically indistinguishable from that of the majority citizen and legal population” – since the majority along the border are Latino.

MAPA also points out that it will “adversely impact indigenous communities whose ancestors have lived in the area and worked the land for hundreds of years”. Many of these tribal lands are on both sides of the border.

The “comprehensive reform” Senate bill does not grant citizenship to the 11 million undocumented immigrants who have been in the US for years and decades.

The bill does allow some of them to apply for “registered provisional immigrant” (RPI) status, allowing them to work and remain in the US. But, MAPA points out, the RPI program will “exclude and/or disqualify over time some 5 million undocumented persons” from adjusting their status.

“With the exception of [children brought into the country by their parents] legalisation provisions fail most of the 11 million undocumented persons … Only eight of the 11 million undocumented persons will initially achieve RPI status.

“Moreover [a recent study] found that … for several reasons the entire population of Registered Provisional Immigrants may never be eligible to apply for permanent resident status (or citizenship) because of onerous ‘continuous employment’ and federal poverty guideline requirements and the high costs combined with the requirement to pay past taxes.”

Requiring that RPIs earn 125 percent above the poverty line and be continuously employed [preventing them from striking] subjects them “to workplace discrimination, exploitation and sexual harassment” and puts them at “high risk to become indentured servants …”

RPIs “will be without health care and are ineligible for federal safety net benefits”, MAPA points out, including Social Security, in spite of having already paid billions in Social Security taxes.

The MAPA statement includes many more facts on how the RPI will adversely affect immigrants, especially women and children.

Some “reform”!

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are the solution. Open the borders! Full rights for all!