An Illinois middle school won't be named after former President Barack Obama over deportation issues, reports say.
Faithwire said the Thomas Jefferson Middle School, originally scheduled to be renamed after Obama and his former first lady Michelle Obama, will not be named after them because of some Latino members of the local community and of the school board's. The school will instead be renamed after civil rights leader John Lewis, who is also a renowned Democrat legislator.
As per Newsweek, the Latino members of the school board opposed the idea of naming the school after the Obamas who have deported many illegal immigrants during their time. Newsweek cited school board member Edgar Castellanos who was previously an illegal immigrant and felt the Obamas "did not represent" the likes of him during their term.
"I will not be part of renaming a school after someone who did not and does not represent the undocumented community," Castellanos told Newsweek in an interview.
Faithwire also cited Julie Contreras, a local activist, who said that what Obama did for illegal immigrants was a "disservice."
"He denied us and he didn't stop the deportations the way he promised," Contreras told Faithwire.
Newsweek said the Waukegan Board of Education has decided to rename middle schools in their area by March. Besides the Jefferson school, the other one is the Daniel Webster Middle School who was named after former U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster. The Webster school will be renamed after activist Edith Smith.
Newsweek revealed that the Obamas were among the top names to be chosen in renaming the Jeffersonschool but protests on it moved the board from removing it from the list. Obama was called the "deporter in chief" during his time for deporting a total of 5 million illegal immigrants for his two-term office.
This number is only half of what former President George Bush deported and only almost a third of former President Bill Clinton's. Former President Donald Trump was said to deport the lowest with 935,000 during his term.
Yet President Joe Biden, as cited by Newsweek, condemned Obama's deportation of immigrants as a "big mistake" allegedly since these people have no criminal records.
"We took far too long to get it right. I think it was a big mistake. Took too long to get it right," Biden was quoted in saying from a Univision interview.
Meanwhile, Faithwire cited renowned commentator Ben Shapiro in commenting on the issue as a boomerang effect of the cancel culture imposed by the Left that Obama belonged to.
"The revolution always eats its own," Shapiro tweeted on Wednesday.
A netizen commented on Shapiro's tweet saying it was "kind of satisfying to see two of the biggest perpetrators of wokeness get consumed by a mob of their own creation."
Faithwire also cited a tweet on the 14th made by Townhall Political Editor Guy Benson who cited the protests being made by "'LatinX' activists."
"A city in IL decided to strip Thomas Jefferson & Daniel Webster's problematic names off of local schools. One middle school was going to be re-named after the Obamas, but "LatinX" activists objected over deportation policies, so that move was scrapped," Benson said.
Speaking of cancel culture, a similar effort was undertaken by the San Francisco School Board when it decided to remove the names of historical figures amongst its 44 schools because they are said to have human rights violations.
