Let's try this. Dax, did you like how Obama handled deporting millions of illegal immigrants?
People who are here illegally face the consequences of the illegality.
On the flipside, your guy slowed down deportation as his administration went on and your leaders pulled a 180 from their late 90's early 00's proclamations as the began to realize they could likely establish a whole new voting bloc. All 100% politically motivated. Your guy never relented on his support of total assholes in charge of Central American Nations (and sadly this administration has continued to support one of them) all the while signaling to illegal immigrants that they could just hop a fence or swim a river, or just show up and declare asylum (a near reversal from earlier in his administration).
Now we have a country were state legislators dump millions (totaling billions collectively) into illegal immigrants while hmm'ing and hawing over relative chicken crap chump change programs of a similar ilk for small groups of Americans.
Another factor was the economy wasn't as good back then, because your guy despite the fact that interest rates were basically 0 and with the Fed was pumping billions of dollars at a time into the economy lead the most anemic post recession recovery in modern U.S. history. So, there wasn't a a flourishing economy for illegals to come to, like there is now.