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Ruben Navarrette Jr., Opinion columnist Published 4:00 a.m. ET Dec. 8, 2020 | Updated 4:55 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2020

Biden has made a lot of lofty promises about immigration reform. We'll see if he actually delivers.

SAN DIEGOWhat will President-elect Joe Biden do with regard to the thorny issue of immigration?

As someone who has written about this topic for three decades and who followed closely the missteps, mistakes and misdeeds of the last administration in which Biden served heres my advice:Mr. President-elect, every time you formulate a policy or face a predicament on immigration, ask yourself, What would former President Barack Obama do? Then do the opposite.

Biden is off to an encouraging start with his first Latino Cabinet pick Homeland Security Secretary-nominee Alejandro Mayorkas.The Cuban American, a former U.S. Attorney who was director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama administration, seems to favor a kinder and gentler approach to immigration

Already, Mayorkas is trying to calm immigrant advocates who worry about the return of Obama-style mass deportations.

He tweeted: When I was very young, the United States provided my family and me a place of refuge. Now, I have been nominated to be the DHS Secretary and oversee the protection of all Americans and those who flee persecution in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

In 2017, Mayorkas told PBSJudy Woodruff that he favored expanding theDeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program which he developed and shepherded to include more people, based on their age when they came to the United States.

As for Obama, there is a reason the 44th president was heckled by undocumented young people. Theres a reason why immigrant advocates including then-Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., were arrested for protesting outside the White House during the Obama years. And theres a reason why immigration activists picketed outside the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, during the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Obama was vexed by immigration. He couldnt get it right. Heres an executive summary of what went wrong:

Obama broke his campaign promise to make immigration reform a top priority.

Vastly expanded the Secure Communities program, which enlisted local and state police to help in the apprehension of undocumented immigrants.

Deported 3 million people in eight yearsand put into foster care tens of thousands of U.S.-born children whose parents got deported.

Refused initially to halt deportations, insisting he wasnt "a king."

Claimed falsely that his administration only deported criminals.

Ordered, in 2014, thousands of Central American refugees to be removed without due process;jailed thousands of others, including infants and toddlers housed in what activists called baby jails; and released a third group into the custody of U.S. relatives only to round them up a little over ayearlater.

Whenever he faced pushback from the left, blamed the heavy-handed approach on Republicans in Congress whom he supposedly needed to please so he could get through a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Protest at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters on July 17, 2020.(Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

No such bill was ever produced. The only part of the Obama immigration agenda that turned out to be real was the pain that his administration inflicted on immigrant communities.

The one bright spot was DACA, a change in executive policy by the Department of Homeland Security. Undocumented young people brought here as childrencould apply for a two-year work permit and have their deportation deferred temporarily.

The catch: Recipients had to turn themselves into authorities, get photographed and fingerprinted, and hand over their home address.That was a good deal for the authorities, but as we learned when Donald Trump became president and ended DACA, leaving more than 600,000 recipients vulnerable to deportation not so good for "Dreamers."

What a debacle. Its no wonder thatas Obamasvice president, Biden tried to avoid the topic of immigration during his own presidentialcampaign.

In November 2019, Biden was confronted at a town hall in Greenwood, South Carolina. Carlos Rojas, a Latino immigrant advocate, grilled Biden about Obamas immigration record. Rojas was fishing for an assurance from the Democratic candidate for president that, if elected, he would not repeat Obamas mistakes. Biden defensively snapped at Rojas: "You should vote for Trump!

This February as primaries in states with heavy Latino populations loomed Biden finally acknowledged that the Obama administration had bungled its policy toward immigrants and refugees. They made a big mistake, Biden told Univisions Jorge Ramos before the caucuses in Nevada, where 30% of the population is Latino.

We can't win on immigration alone: Latinos helped elect Biden, but Democrats can do better

The president-electhas promised to issue in the first 100 daysmore than a dozen executive orders and policy changes rolling back Trumps immigration policies.He vowed to reinstate DACA, halt construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, stop separating families, end prolonged detentions,restore asylumand curb deportations.He even promised to send Congress a bill to give legal status to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Dont hold your breath. The same political considerations that tripped up Obama are likely to ensnare Biden.

Obama drove his immigration policy into a ditch by trying to be simultaneously tough and compassionate. He turned out to be much better at the former than he was at the latter.

Now Biden is likely to travel the same road. He cant afford to be seen as soft on border security. If Biden encounters a migrantcrisis like the one that flummoxed Obama in 2014, we can expect him to follow Obamas example and make all the same errors in judgment.

Obama was squeezed between Latinos who wanted legal status for the undocumented and a more lenient approach to deportations, and white working class union members and African Americans who feeling overrun by Latino immigrants and seeing the prospect of legalizing millions of them as economic suicide because it would only increase competition for jobs favored the opposite approach.

Biden will now find himself between the same rock and hard place. Expect him to bring back DACAand call it a day. He may yield to the demand of immigrant activists to strengthen the program and make it permanent, or he couldbe satisfied with just taking DACA back to what it was on the last day of the Obama administration.

Either way, there wont be much else happening on immigration, and Biden will blame his failure to produce anything more on a GOP-controlled Senate led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Meanwhile, deportations will continue at roughly the same pace that theyre happening now, which is an improvement over Obamas deportation juggernaut. And a mass granting of legal status which the right-wing derides as amnesty" will never be mentioned again.

Policy over president: Why activists for police, immigration reform need to focus on policies, not presidents

Thats a far cry from what Biden promised a group of Hispanic supporters in September when he traveled to Kissimmee, Florida, for an event to mark Hispanic Heritage Month. He said that, if elected, he would commence to finally building an immigration system that treats people with dignity and is true to American values.

Thats not likely to happen. The politics of immigration wont allow it to happen. The players change,But the game stays the same.

Ruben Navarrette Jr., a member of the USA TODAYBoard of Contributors, is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Groupand host of the podcastNavarrette Nation. Follow him on Twitter:@RubenNavarrette

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On immigration, Biden should look to the Obama administration and do the opposite - USA TODAY