Obama was surprisingly tough on immigration. ICE was doing raids at the time, I remember hearing about raids at the industrial chicken farms not far from where I live. Obama was also working heavily with Mexico to stop immigration at Mexico's southern border.

Illegal immigration is going to be an unsolvable problems regardless of party, as long as we have the incentive of welfare programs that make it financially lucrative just to physically be in the country. I'm not arguing to get rid of those programs, but the incentives are there to come illegally and there's just no feasible way to secure such a large border with land, air, and sea travel.