Latino support for Obama plunging

By Ruben Navarrette
Pasadena Star News
02/12/2011

In the last presidential election, Barack Obama marketed himself to Latino voters as a kinder and gentler response to the immigration policies of George W. Bush.

For example, Obama was on his high horse in July 2008 when he schmoozed the National Council of La Raza at its annual conference. He told the group that things had gone astray under Bush "when communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing."

Latinos fell for the sales pitch, handing over two-thirds of their votes to Obama even though he had a history of showing little interest in their concerns.

Now many Latinos feel suckered. An Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Hispanics in July found that only 43 percent said Obama was adequately addressing issues that matter to them, including immigration reform.

And the problem is not just that Obama broke his promise to make immigration reform a top priority in his first term. From what I'm hearing, what really concerns many Latinos is that Obama is moving in the opposite direction.

Look at the area of immigration enforcement, which this administration has approached with the finesse and sensitivity of Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Not only has the Department of Homeland Security - and specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement - deported 779,000 illegal immigrants in the last two years, but Secretary Janet Napolitano has a crass habit of bragging about this accomplishment to silence her conservative critics.

Recently, Napolitano repeated the boast during a speech in El Paso, where she assured the audience that the administration had removed more illegal immigrants "than ever before."

Her assertion is not quite right but close enough for government work. The deportation king is still President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose administration deported in 1954 about 1 million people - including many Latinos who were U.S. citizens - as part of a sweep with the ugly name of "Operation Wetback."

Still, removing nearly 800,000 illegal immigrants in two years is a modern-day record, and it's a statistic the administration is obviously very proud of.

What Napolitano doesn't mention is that one of the major reasons that ICE has been able to rack up such high numbers of deportations is because it has the force multiplier of the 287(g) program working on its behalf. That initiative essentially deputizes local police to enforce federal immigration law, and so it's a great help to ICE.

Unfortunately for the agency, the program also remains controversial. Recently, an independent think tank issued a report that found the program isn't being implemented as it was intended and that local police are taking into custody even those illegal immigrants who have committed minor offenses.

You can still find Latino Democrats who will make excuses for the administration. Some claim that Obama is trying to inoculate himself from Republican accusations that he is soft on border security. Others think he is shrewdly laying the groundwork so he can push for immigration reform down the road.

But let's not forget that there is a third possibility. I've come to the conclusion that Obama sees an intrinsic value in taking a hard line on immigration enforcement because - like many Democrats from blue-collar and industrial states - he believes that excessive levels of immigration hurt U.S. workers and that it's his responsibility to protect American jobs.

This kind of protection is misguided. You don't help people by shielding them from competition. You only make them soft and foster a sense of entitlement.

Meanwhile, most of the Latinos I hear from no longer think Obama is entitled to their support. They aren't particularly proud of the administration's record on immigration, and they won't defend it. In fact, many of them are concerned. Some are angry. They say they would prefer that Obama concentrate his efforts on fashioning an immigration reform plan that allows hardworking illegal immigrants to stay in the United States instead of trying to remove as many of them as possible.

Ironically, a few months into his presidency, Obama named a point-person who was supposed to craft an immigration reform proposal. That person was Janet Napolitano.

I'm sure she'll get around to it one of these days. Like the rest of the Obama administration, she has other priorities.

ruben@rubennavarrette.com.

Ruben Navarrette is a syndicated columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_17372299#ixzz1EbcS4tf9

New Mexico Voters Support Strong Policy on Immigrants

By Sean Olson
ABQ Journal News
September 05, 2010

New Mexico voters like the city of Albuquerque's new policy of checking immigrant status of anyone arrested — by a wide margin — and strongly disapprove of the state's policy of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

A majority of voters in a new Journal Poll also gave a thumbs-up to Arizona's new immigration law, which has been denounced by the Obama administration, Gov. Bill Richardson and others.

Hispanic voters agreed with the majority on the state's driver's license policy and the city's immigration check policy. They had a different view on the Arizona law, but even that had 39 percent support.

Gabriel R. Sanchez, an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Mexico, said that New Mexicans do not favor the Arizona law as much as the rest of the country, but that the state's voters are becoming more and more disenchanted with illegal immigrants.

He said that historically, the United States often becomes more concerned — and angry — with immigrant populations during times of economic turmoil.

"The elephant in the room is that, I guarantee you, if you ran this survey two years ago, before the economy went downhill, you would get very different results," Sanchez said.

Albuquerque's policy, which requires that immigration status be checked for all people who are booked into jail, was extremely popular, with 84 percent saying they favored it. Twelve percent opposed it, 2 percent had mixed feelings, and 2 percent didn't know or wouldn't say.

"The deeper a person has entered the criminal justice system, the more palatable it seems to be among voters to allow police to check their immigration status," said pollster Brian Sanderoff, president of Research and Polling Inc., which conducted the Journal Poll.

Seventy-two percent of voters polled opposed New Mexico's driver's license law. Twenty percent favored the law, 6 percent had mixed feelings and 2 percent didn't know or wouldn't say.

Sanderoff said the driver's license law is especially hard for some people to swallow.

"I think it hits people in the gut," he said. "The issuance of a driver's license by state government may imply a certain level of recognition or legal status that some feel should not be afforded to individuals who are not here legally."

Views on voters

Marcela Diaz, director of the immigrant rights group Somos un Pueblo Unido, said the Journal Poll findings show that people are upset with the status quo of U.S. law, but don't give a very good idea of people's sentiments toward illegal immigrants.

Diaz speculated that many of those who agree with Arizona's law, for example, would most likely be happy to have a federal policy allowing illegal immigrants who have committed no other crimes to work legally in the United States.

"I think this really shows the frustration with a federal government that refuses to do anything," Diaz said. "What (people) really want is our politicians to buckle down and come up with policies, common sense policies."

Tea Party supporter Linda Merrell said the majorities supporting the Arizona law and Albuquerque's policy mirror the thoughts of many Americans who are concerned with the country's safety and economic security.

Merrell said those concerns don't mean people aren't compassionate, and she said she, for instance, would support a guest worker program among other federal reforms.

"I think people care about it deeply; they are concerned with the violence and the uptick in crime," Merrell said. "But I also think people are getting very, very concerned at just how affordable the open border is going to be for us, because the economy is awful."

Complex findings

The Journal Poll poll found that 79 percent of Hispanic voters supported the city of Albuquerque's immigration-check policy, while 67 percent opposed the state's driver's license law.

More of the Hispanics opposed the Arizona law than supported it — 48 percent to 39 percent.

"Some people would assume that Hispanics would just oppose it because of allegations of racial profiling," Sanderoff said, adding that native New Mexico Hispanics, with long-running family histories in the state, often aren't sympathetic to immigrants.

"Many native Hispanics resent people trying to lump them all into one category," he also said.

Sanchez said that people do not realize that just as many Hispanics are conservative as liberal across the country, so "it's not all that surprising" to see a large number of Hispanics supporting

Albuquerque's policy and opposing the state driver's license law.

He said he expected less support for the Arizona law because it has been framed by critics as "anti-Latino."

Anglo voters were more likely than Hispanic voters to support the Arizona law and the Albuquerque policy. Anglo voters also were more likely than Hispanics to oppose New Mexico's driver's license law for illegal immigrants — 76 percent to 67 percent.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to support the Arizona law and Albuquerque policy, and to oppose the New Mexico driver's license law.

However, 78 percent of Democrats supported the Albuquerque policy and 63 percent opposed the driver's license law. Half of the Democrats opposed the Arizona law, and 35 percent supported it.

Albuquerque resident Donna Crawford, a conservative who agrees with the Arizona law, said she hopes lawmakers will follow the will of New Mexico voters.

"I certainly would hope that New Mexico would join in the Arizona law," Crawford said. "I don't understand what's wrong with this state."

Ralph Arellanes, director of the New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said the results show that people have been influenced by a huge amount of slanted news coverage on illegal immigration and don't have all the facts about the issues, especially the Arizona law.

"They don't understand the ramifications of this bill," Arellanes said. "And because it only applies to Hispanics, they don't really give a damn."

Methodology

The Journal Poll on immigration questions is based on telephone interviews with a scientific sample of 403 proven New Mexico voters who said they are likely to vote in the Nov. 2 general election.

For all categories of voters — such as party members, Anglos and Hispanics — the numbers of voters polled are proportionate to their numbers among likely voters for the New Mexico general election on Nov. 2

The telephone interviews were conducted statewide Aug. 23-27 by Research and Polling Inc. of Albuquerque.

The margin of error for the full, statewide sample of voters is plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The margin of error grows for subsamples.

Poll respondents were asked three questions:

• "Based on what you know, do you favor or oppose Arizona's new immigration law?"

• "New Mexico state law allows driver's licenses to be issued to foreign nationals, including illegal immigrants. Supporters say this law reduces the numbers of uninsured drivers while opponents say it encourages more illegal immigrants to come to New Mexico. Do you favor or oppose this law?"

• "Do you favor or oppose the city of Albuquerque's policy that requires all people who are booked into jail to be checked for their immigration status?"

Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal

Latinos increasingly critical of Obama's record on immigration

By N.C. Aizenman
The Washington Post
March 20, 2010

As tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters prepare to demonstrate in Washington on Sunday in favor of an immigration overhaul, the Obama administration is finding its relationship with this largely Latino community complicated by its mixed and misunderstood record on immigration enforcement.

Compared with the Bush administration, Obama officials have substantially cut back on job-site roundups of illegal workers in favor of less controversial measures, such as auditing employers' books and expanding programs that target unauthorized immigrants convicted of crimes.

The number of workers arrested for being in the country illegally -- an administrative violation of immigration law -- through work-site raids dropped nearly 70 percent, from 5,184 to 1,644 in the 2009 fiscal year, prompting an outcry from some congressional Republicans.

"At best, it appears as though immigration enforcement is being shelved and the administration is attempting to enact some sort of selective amnesty under the cover of prioritization," said Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) at a House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee hearing Thursday. "We cannot allow a preoccupation with criminal aliens to obscure other critical ICE missions. . . . At a time of painfully high unemployment, how can we allow illegal immigrants to take jobs away from Americans who need them?"

Yet Obama officials have not halted work-site roundups altogether, and their other enforcement programs continue to sweep up tens of thousands of non-criminal illegal immigrants. This has fueled a growing sense of betrayal among many Latinos who voted for the president.

Criticism from both sides

John T. Morton, assistant secretary of Homeland Security in charge of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), acknowledged that Latino disillusionment can be as pronounced as conservatives' unhappiness. "I can get criticized on the same issue from both sides on the same day," he said.

Among the advocates, much of the frustration stems from the stalled effort to legalize unauthorized immigrants as well as gnawing doubts about the president's commitment to push it through Congress this year. But perhaps no aspect of the immigration issue arouses more passion than the administration's enforcement record, because it is the one area over which the president has full control.

"When Obama said [during the campaign] it's un-American to tear a mother from her child, we believed him," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which has brought several hundred protesters to Washington. "We never imagined that a year later, we'd be denouncing his administration for surpassing the Bush administration on enforcement."

In recent months, a drumbeat of reports about small-scale work-site raids by ICE, including an operation targeting two Maryland restaurants last week in which agents arrested 29 foreigners, has also created an exaggerated impression of the extent to which such actions still take place.

A recent government report that grossly overstated the rate of deportations didn't help matters, incorrectly asserting that deportations were up 47 percent in Obama's first year. This month, immigrant advocates seized on that statistic at a Washington news conference.

But as ICE officials clarified that day, deportations have increased by 5 percent, reaching 387,790 removals in fiscal year 2009. The increase in removals is due to a 19 percent rise in deportation of criminal immigrants, but two-thirds of those removed were still non-criminals, and the total reached a record high.

Morton said the statistics reflect ICE's priorities: to protect against national security threats, remove the most dangerous criminal offenders, and target unscrupulous employers first, but without ignoring the law against illegal immigrant workers.

"We cannot be in a position in which the government only enforces the law in one direction and turns a blind eye to violations in the other direction," he said.

Fugitive operations

The record of ICE's fugitive operations teams is also mixed. The teams, which search for illegal immigrants who have evaded deportation orders, have long been criticized for bursting into the homes of non-criminal immigrants instead of targeting dangerous criminals. Under Obama, the share of criminal immigrants arrested through fugitive operations increased from less than a fourth to nearly half. Yet non-criminal immigrants continue to account for the majority of arrests, numbering nearly 20,000.

Immigrant advocates have also expressed strong reservations about the administration's shift toward auditing company employment records. The number of such audits nearly doubled in the fiscal 2009, to 1,444, with 52 companies fined for employing illegal workers.

Even programs that would appear to focus on criminal illegal immigrants have aroused the ire of immigrant advocates. They note that under the Criminal Alien Program, in which ICE agents visit prisons to identify illegal immigrants, more than half of the 232,796 immigrants targeted for deportation in fiscal 2009 were non-criminals.

Most contentious is a program that deputizes local law enforcement to identify illegal immigrants and pursue their deportation. Advocates worry that that the program, known as 287g after the legal provision that created it, lacks sufficient oversight to prevent local officials who might be prejudiced against immigrants from targeting them. Similar concerns are growing around another program, Secure Communities, in which the scanners in cooperating local jails are set up to automatically check anyone fingerprinted against homeland security databases.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter controls on immigration, said that for all the anger Obama officials have aroused among advocates, their enforcement approach is necessary.

"They need credibility on enforcement," he said, or any immigration overhaul is destined to fail.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031904676.html

Obama faces pressure on immigration reform

Obama faces pressure on immigration reform
Amid urgent priorities, Latinos push overhaul
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff
November 17, 2008

Before a huge crowd in San Diego last summer, Barack Obama vowed to make fixing illegal immigration a top priority as president, and Latinos nationwide responded with massive support for him on Election Day. Now, they are pressing him to keep his promise.

"We voted in large numbers for Obama," said Juan Salgado, board president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a nonprofit based in Chicago, Obama's training ground for immigration issues when he was a senator. "If we're sitting here two and a half years from now and absolutely nothing's been done, people are going to start asking questions."

From Cape Cod to California, activists on both sides of the volatile issue are girding for battle. Supporters of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants - most of whom are Latino - want Obama to press for a path to legal residency for them. Opponents say reform is impossible at a time when unemployment is soaring, and instead want tougher border security and less immigration to preserve Americans' jobs.

Many analysts are skeptical that Oba ma can navigate the political minefield of illegal immigration in his first year, while confronting the plunging economy and two wars. Still, groups on both sides are commissioning polls to gauge Americans' appetite for the immigration issue and assembling teams to file legislation for their cause next year.

"We're going to be fighting like crazy to keep it off the floor" in Congress, said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, the nation's largest group favoring immigration controls. "Now is not the time to be talking about this."

To start, many expect Obama to halt big immigration raids, such as last year's operation in New Bedford, and, perhaps later, push to allow illegal-immigrant students to pay resident tuition at colleges and universities.

Obama also must decide whether to ask Congress in March to reauthorize the e-verify program, a controversial worker database that is used to check employees' legal status. And he will possibly confront the deportation of his 56-year-old aunt, Zeituni Onyango, who is in the country illegally and who recently fled media attention in Boston for Cleveland.

Immigration advocates say Obama owes a debt to Latino voters, who voted 67 percent in his favor overall, according to a poll for America's Voice, a national communications campaign that favors legal residency for illegal immigrants. Latino support helped him capture such formerly Republican states as Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada. Immigrant voters gave Obama the highest support - 78 percent of Latino immigrants voted for him, compared with 61 percent of US born-Latinos.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/17/obama_faces_pressure_on_immigration_reform/

Hispanics concerned about immigration

Hispanics concerned about immigration
By PEW HISPANIC CENTER
The Miami Herald
September 27, 2008

Below are excerpts from the report, ''2008 National Survey of Latinos,'' released last week by the Pew Hispanic Center. The report describes pessimism among Hispanics about U.S. immigration policy.

Half of all Latinos say that the situation in this country is worse now than it was a year ago, according to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Hispanic adults conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center.

This pessimism is especially prevalent among immigrants who account for 54 percent of all Hispanic adults in the United States. Fully 63 percent of these Latino immigrants say that the situation of Latinos has worsened over the past year. In 2007, just 42 percent of all adult Hispanic immigrants -- and 33 percent of all Hispanic adults -- said the same thing.

These increasingly downbeat assessments come at a time when the Hispanic community in this country -- numbering 46 million, or 15.4 percent of the total U.S. civilian noninstitutional population -- has been hit hard by rising unemployment and stepped-up immigration enforcement.

Almost one-in-10 Hispanic adults -- native-born U.S. citizens and immigrants -- report that in the past year the police or other authorities have stopped them and asked them about their immigration status.

Some Latinos are experiencing other difficulties because of their ethnicity. One-in-seven say that they have had trouble in the past year finding or keeping a job because they are Latino. One-in-10 report the same about finding or keeping housing.

Latinos disapprove of all five enforcement measures asked about in this survey -- and generally do so by lopsided margins.

More than four-in-five say that immigration enforcement should be left to federal authorities rather than the local police; 76 percent disapprove of workplace raids; 73 percent disapprove of the criminal prosecution of undocumented immigrants who are working without authorization; and 70 percent disapprove of the criminal prosecution of employers who hire undocumented immigrants. A narrow majority (53 percent) disapproves of a requirement that employers check
a federal database to verify the legal immigration status of all prospective hires.

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/703782.html