President Barack Obama’s got a version of his “We can’t wait” drive customized for the Latino audience.
Never heard of it? Unless you’re a Latino voter, that’s no surprise.
Over the past few months, the Obama administration has rolled out a series of executive actions that often garner little attention from the English-language press but get huge coverage in the Spanish-language media and other outlets favored by Hispanics.
As Obama’s GOP rivals face the primaries’ first sizable group of Latino voters, in Florida, the president’s use of executive power to court the potentially pivotal demographic group already is well under way. And Obama’s team is heavily promoting his actions to their target audience.
When Obama sat down with Spanish-language network Univision on Wednesday, one of the first things he did was boast about the immigration policies he’s altered.
“Some of the changes that we’re making on immigration, we’re trying to make sure that we’re prioritizing criminals [for deportation],” the president said, without really being asked.
Latino advocates say they’ve noticed a new level of engagement from the White House.
“They want to tell Latinos what they’re doing. That’s clear,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), an outspoken immigration reform advocate who has pushed the administration to take unilateral steps to ease and refocus immigration enforcement.
Gutierrez said the proposals initially got a chilly reception from Obama and his aides, but the administration seems to be coming around.
“Before they weren’t worried about communicating with anyone in terms of the immigration sphere, except the very restrictionist community which they spoke to in very clear terms for three years. Every time they had a press conference on how many deportations, they weren’t shy about telling us,” Gutierrez said. “So, there is a difference [now], and I’m happy. Does it take a campaign to bring that out? Maybe. But there are more families being kept together as a result of the changes.”
The steady stream of under-the-radar moves to tweak the immigration system are aimed at re-energizing Latino voters disappointed by Obama’s failure to win — or even make a serious push on — a comprehensive immigration overhaul, and by the record-setting number of deportations carried out since Obama took office, Democrats say.
Gutierrez dates the administration’s new focus on immigration issues to Obama’s appearance last July before the National Council of La Raza. As Obama explained to the Latino activists that he had little ability to change the immigration process without help from Congress, the crowd broke into a variation of his 2008 campaign slogan.
“Yes, you can. Yes, you can,” they chanted.
“I think at that point [Obama aides] said, ‘You know what? We can,’” Gutierrez said.
Since that visit, the administration has discovered new flexibility to change a variety of immigration-related policies without the approval of Congress.
In August, the federal government promised to refocus deportations on criminals and launched an unprecedented review of all pending deportation cases, including those in which a final deportation order has been issued. In December, the Department of Homeland Security announced a toll-free hot line for citizens mistakenly detained as foreigners.
Earlier this month, Obama’s appointees began the process of tweaking the green-card policy, curtailing potentially dangerous trips to consulates in violence-plagued Mexico — another change the president highlighted in his Univision interview. A few days later, DHS released a policy enhancing the rights of lawyers representing immigrants in deportation proceedings.
“In the mainstream press, I don’t see a lot of news about the waiver [process for green cards] and the deportation review, but you can see that in the Spanish media all the time,” said Antonieta Cadiz, White House correspondent for La Opinión, a Spanish-language paper in Los Angeles. “The administrative relief measures: That’s something important.”
Obama has also hosted the Latino press for at least three White House roundtables in recent months, including reporters for local Spanish-language newspapers.
“We have access,” Cadiz said.
But Cadiz said the new measures and outreach have only partly reassured Latinos disappointed by the failure to overhaul immigration laws, which Obama promised to make a major push for in his first year in office. She also called the volume of deportations a “huge problem” Obama has to overcome.
A Pew Hispanic Center poll taken late last year found 59 percent of U.S. Latinos disapprove of Obama’s deportation policy.
But Obama, his aides and many in the Latino community say the GOP presidential candidates’ tough anti-immigration rhetoric is easing the president’s effort to reclaim the Hispanic vote. Mitt Romney campaigned in South Carolina with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a villain to many Latinos for his role in drafting state laws to crack down on illegal immigrants. In a debate last week in Florida, Romney urged “self-deportation” for illegal immigrants, a notion unlikely to sit well with many Hispanics.
Newt Gingrich has struck more moderate notes on immigration, but both he and Romney have endorsed English as the official national language and have vowed to veto the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow a path to citizenship for individuals who came to the U.S. illegally as children but are enrolled in college or the military. (Romney said he’d sign such a measure if it were limited to the military.)
During a November roundtable with Latino journalists, Obama suggested that his campaign wouldn’t need to do much to woo Hispanics since Republicans seem to be alienating them.
“We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We won’t even comment on them, we’ll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds,” the president said.
Gutierrez said those networks have been giving all Republican candidate mentions of immigration major play.
“The problem for them is everybody’s watching,” he said. “The Republican debates have shown that there is absolutely no space for us there.”
The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action and the Service Employees International Union are already airing Spanish-language radio ads pointing out that Romney’s own Spanish-language ads in Florida ignore his alliance with Kobach and his opposition to the DREAM act.
National polls of Latinos suggest Obama’s approval rating has eroded somewhat over the past year, but he maintains commanding leads over his most likely Republican rivals. Obama leads Romney, 67 percent to 25 percent, and Gingrich, 70 percent to 22 percent, in a Univision/ABC News poll out last week.
Still, any dip in Latino support from 2008 could hurt Obama’s reelection chances. “Democrats have to be wary that interest of their voters is not as high as in ’08,” said Terry Madonna, a pollster and public affairs professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “They need to have a fairly substantial turnout among minority groups. That makes niche marketing all the more important.”
Consultants say the Obama campaign is well-positioned to use the Latino media to deliver a customized message to Hispanics — but officials need to be cautious that those messages don’t turn off other voters.
“It’s a very fine dance with targeting,” said GOP new-media strategist Patrick Ruffini. “The essential political risk has been growing with the ability to do it.”
Some Republican lawmakers already are noticing — and attacking — Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the president’s moves amount to a “back-door amnesty” that ignores immigration laws.
“The Obama administration has a pattern of abusing administrative authority to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States,” Smith said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the decisions made by President Obama seem to be more influenced by campaign politics and liberal constituencies rather than sound policy for the good of our country.”
Many of the recent policy changes were suggested in memos that Hispanic groups sent the White House in the first half of last year, though often Obama did not go as far as the groups sought.
For its part, the White House denies that the immigration-related measures are timed to aid the president politically.
“The president has been outspoken in his commitment to fixing America’s broken immigration system. He believes Congress should work together to build a 21st century immigration system that meets our nation’s economic and security needs. But given the urgency of these challenges, we can’t wait for Congress to act. That’s why he has made administrative improvements to make government work smarter and more effectively,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement.
Few non-Latino voters describe immigration as the issue of greatest concern to them. However, a Gallup Poll taken this month showed only 28 percent of Americans satisfied with the current “level of immigration.” The low figure reflects both those who think immigration policies are too liberal and those who find them too harsh.
“It’s an issue that has some emotional edge to it, which is why I think it does have the potential to be an issue that flares up,” said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. “Those who are most concerned about it now are Republicans, and obviously Obama’s strategy is not aimed at winning them over.”
Measures like the DREAM Act generally poll well, but some Obama administration actions do run counter to overall public opinion. In recent months, the Justice Department has filed lawsuits against popular laws passed in Alabama, South Carolina and Utah that crack down on illegal immigrants. Arizona’s challenge to an earlier administration suit against that state’s immigration-control law will be argued before the Supreme Court this spring.
Analysts say the greatest risk in Obama’s “we can’t wait” immigration strategy lies with swing voters in key states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, who might disagree with the policy and — more dangerously — view it as evidence that the president isn’t focused on jobs and the economy.
“The Republican nominee, whoever that may be, will be cognizant of this to see if there are ways of making this an issue,” Newport predicted.
“Immigration reform is a major issue uniquely with” Latinos, Democratic pollster Mark Penn said. “Candidates are going to want to get their comprehensive immigration reform position out to the Latinos and probably want to downplay it to the rest. It is important, though, to not be inconsistent in that message or they’ll quickly find themselves in a bind.”
While Obama described the recent immigration changes to Univision as part of his “we can’t wait” agenda, he did not make a speech or hold an event about them as he did for some other parts of the campaign aimed at congressional inaction.
Schultz said Obama “has repeatedly called for elevating this issue, [and] we welcome as much coverage from across the media spectrum as possible.”
When a reporter noted to Gutierrez that many of the new immigration initiatives don’t generate much attention in the English-language press, he interjected, with a laugh: “You think on purpose, maybe?”
He said he still detects a skittishness among Obama’s advisers about putting immigration issues front and center with a general audience. “Do I think there’s some, ‘It would be nice if we could only communicate with Latinos’? … Yeah, there’s some of that,” he said. “I understand some of the cynicism that can come with it. I’m just hard-pressed to have a problem with it.”
Never heard of it? Unless you’re a Latino voter, that’s no surprise.
Over the past few months, the Obama administration has rolled out a series of executive actions that often garner little attention from the English-language press but get huge coverage in the Spanish-language media and other outlets favored by Hispanics.
As Obama’s GOP rivals face the primaries’ first sizable group of Latino voters, in Florida, the president’s use of executive power to court the potentially pivotal demographic group already is well under way. And Obama’s team is heavily promoting his actions to their target audience.
When Obama sat down with Spanish-language network Univision on Wednesday, one of the first things he did was boast about the immigration policies he’s altered.
“Some of the changes that we’re making on immigration, we’re trying to make sure that we’re prioritizing criminals [for deportation],” the president said, without really being asked.
Latino advocates say they’ve noticed a new level of engagement from the White House.
“They want to tell Latinos what they’re doing. That’s clear,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), an outspoken immigration reform advocate who has pushed the administration to take unilateral steps to ease and refocus immigration enforcement.
Gutierrez said the proposals initially got a chilly reception from Obama and his aides, but the administration seems to be coming around.
“Before they weren’t worried about communicating with anyone in terms of the immigration sphere, except the very restrictionist community which they spoke to in very clear terms for three years. Every time they had a press conference on how many deportations, they weren’t shy about telling us,” Gutierrez said. “So, there is a difference [now], and I’m happy. Does it take a campaign to bring that out? Maybe. But there are more families being kept together as a result of the changes.”
The steady stream of under-the-radar moves to tweak the immigration system are aimed at re-energizing Latino voters disappointed by Obama’s failure to win — or even make a serious push on — a comprehensive immigration overhaul, and by the record-setting number of deportations carried out since Obama took office, Democrats say.
Gutierrez dates the administration’s new focus on immigration issues to Obama’s appearance last July before the National Council of La Raza. As Obama explained to the Latino activists that he had little ability to change the immigration process without help from Congress, the crowd broke into a variation of his 2008 campaign slogan.
“Yes, you can. Yes, you can,” they chanted.
“I think at that point [Obama aides] said, ‘You know what? We can,’” Gutierrez said.
Since that visit, the administration has discovered new flexibility to change a variety of immigration-related policies without the approval of Congress.
In August, the federal government promised to refocus deportations on criminals and launched an unprecedented review of all pending deportation cases, including those in which a final deportation order has been issued. In December, the Department of Homeland Security announced a toll-free hot line for citizens mistakenly detained as foreigners.
Earlier this month, Obama’s appointees began the process of tweaking the green-card policy, curtailing potentially dangerous trips to consulates in violence-plagued Mexico — another change the president highlighted in his Univision interview. A few days later, DHS released a policy enhancing the rights of lawyers representing immigrants in deportation proceedings.
“In the mainstream press, I don’t see a lot of news about the waiver [process for green cards] and the deportation review, but you can see that in the Spanish media all the time,” said Antonieta Cadiz, White House correspondent for La Opinión, a Spanish-language paper in Los Angeles. “The administrative relief measures: That’s something important.”
Obama has also hosted the Latino press for at least three White House roundtables in recent months, including reporters for local Spanish-language newspapers.
“We have access,” Cadiz said.
But Cadiz said the new measures and outreach have only partly reassured Latinos disappointed by the failure to overhaul immigration laws, which Obama promised to make a major push for in his first year in office. She also called the volume of deportations a “huge problem” Obama has to overcome.
A Pew Hispanic Center poll taken late last year found 59 percent of U.S. Latinos disapprove of Obama’s deportation policy.
But Obama, his aides and many in the Latino community say the GOP presidential candidates’ tough anti-immigration rhetoric is easing the president’s effort to reclaim the Hispanic vote. Mitt Romney campaigned in South Carolina with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a villain to many Latinos for his role in drafting state laws to crack down on illegal immigrants. In a debate last week in Florida, Romney urged “self-deportation” for illegal immigrants, a notion unlikely to sit well with many Hispanics.
Newt Gingrich has struck more moderate notes on immigration, but both he and Romney have endorsed English as the official national language and have vowed to veto the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow a path to citizenship for individuals who came to the U.S. illegally as children but are enrolled in college or the military. (Romney said he’d sign such a measure if it were limited to the military.)
During a November roundtable with Latino journalists, Obama suggested that his campaign wouldn’t need to do much to woo Hispanics since Republicans seem to be alienating them.
“We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We won’t even comment on them, we’ll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds,” the president said.
Gutierrez said those networks have been giving all Republican candidate mentions of immigration major play.
“The problem for them is everybody’s watching,” he said. “The Republican debates have shown that there is absolutely no space for us there.”
The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action and the Service Employees International Union are already airing Spanish-language radio ads pointing out that Romney’s own Spanish-language ads in Florida ignore his alliance with Kobach and his opposition to the DREAM act.
National polls of Latinos suggest Obama’s approval rating has eroded somewhat over the past year, but he maintains commanding leads over his most likely Republican rivals. Obama leads Romney, 67 percent to 25 percent, and Gingrich, 70 percent to 22 percent, in a Univision/ABC News poll out last week.
Still, any dip in Latino support from 2008 could hurt Obama’s reelection chances. “Democrats have to be wary that interest of their voters is not as high as in ’08,” said Terry Madonna, a pollster and public affairs professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “They need to have a fairly substantial turnout among minority groups. That makes niche marketing all the more important.”
Consultants say the Obama campaign is well-positioned to use the Latino media to deliver a customized message to Hispanics — but officials need to be cautious that those messages don’t turn off other voters.
“It’s a very fine dance with targeting,” said GOP new-media strategist Patrick Ruffini. “The essential political risk has been growing with the ability to do it.”
Some Republican lawmakers already are noticing — and attacking — Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the president’s moves amount to a “back-door amnesty” that ignores immigration laws.
“The Obama administration has a pattern of abusing administrative authority to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States,” Smith said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the decisions made by President Obama seem to be more influenced by campaign politics and liberal constituencies rather than sound policy for the good of our country.”
Many of the recent policy changes were suggested in memos that Hispanic groups sent the White House in the first half of last year, though often Obama did not go as far as the groups sought.
For its part, the White House denies that the immigration-related measures are timed to aid the president politically.
“The president has been outspoken in his commitment to fixing America’s broken immigration system. He believes Congress should work together to build a 21st century immigration system that meets our nation’s economic and security needs. But given the urgency of these challenges, we can’t wait for Congress to act. That’s why he has made administrative improvements to make government work smarter and more effectively,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement.
Few non-Latino voters describe immigration as the issue of greatest concern to them. However, a Gallup Poll taken this month showed only 28 percent of Americans satisfied with the current “level of immigration.” The low figure reflects both those who think immigration policies are too liberal and those who find them too harsh.
“It’s an issue that has some emotional edge to it, which is why I think it does have the potential to be an issue that flares up,” said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. “Those who are most concerned about it now are Republicans, and obviously Obama’s strategy is not aimed at winning them over.”
Measures like the DREAM Act generally poll well, but some Obama administration actions do run counter to overall public opinion. In recent months, the Justice Department has filed lawsuits against popular laws passed in Alabama, South Carolina and Utah that crack down on illegal immigrants. Arizona’s challenge to an earlier administration suit against that state’s immigration-control law will be argued before the Supreme Court this spring.
Analysts say the greatest risk in Obama’s “we can’t wait” immigration strategy lies with swing voters in key states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, who might disagree with the policy and — more dangerously — view it as evidence that the president isn’t focused on jobs and the economy.
“The Republican nominee, whoever that may be, will be cognizant of this to see if there are ways of making this an issue,” Newport predicted.
“Immigration reform is a major issue uniquely with” Latinos, Democratic pollster Mark Penn said. “Candidates are going to want to get their comprehensive immigration reform position out to the Latinos and probably want to downplay it to the rest. It is important, though, to not be inconsistent in that message or they’ll quickly find themselves in a bind.”
While Obama described the recent immigration changes to Univision as part of his “we can’t wait” agenda, he did not make a speech or hold an event about them as he did for some other parts of the campaign aimed at congressional inaction.
Schultz said Obama “has repeatedly called for elevating this issue, [and] we welcome as much coverage from across the media spectrum as possible.”
When a reporter noted to Gutierrez that many of the new immigration initiatives don’t generate much attention in the English-language press, he interjected, with a laugh: “You think on purpose, maybe?”
He said he still detects a skittishness among Obama’s advisers about putting immigration issues front and center with a general audience. “Do I think there’s some, ‘It would be nice if we could only communicate with Latinos’? … Yeah, there’s some of that,” he said. “I understand some of the cynicism that can come with it. I’m just hard-pressed to have a problem with it.”
25 comments:
It seems interesting to me that its been almost four years since President Obama has taken office and hes just now starting to make a bunch of reforms towards immigration and deportation. I believe he is doing this because its getting close to election and he wants to gain back the Latino communities votes for reelection. It seems like theirs a lot going on with this in Washington and I'm pretty sure its because of the election and everyones trying to please everyone else to get their vote.
It is important that we remember that this is an election year an Obama wants to be reelected and is ready to do whatever it takes to remain in the White House. I doubt immigration policies are the main priority on Obama's "to-do" list but he is making the new policies just in time for election in hopes of gaining any unsure Latino votes. I am not saying that Obama does not truly care for the Latino community but a lot of what Obama is doing now and will continue to do in the near future will basically be for his campaign. Obama is also having to worry about the votes from the Latino community that were very supportive in 2008 but have expressed they felt as if Obama could have done more earlier for immigration policies.
Well, let's be honest here. Yes, it is probably a campaign tactic. Does this mean Obama, Romney, or Gingrich aren't genuinely invested in the subject of immigration reform? Of course not. Do immigration policies need to be reformed? Yes, they do.
But, as far as Latino voter support goes, of course the GOP candidates have lost a lot of ground in this sense. They are not primarily aiming to please the Hispanic voters with their stands, but rather the white population (as it is the majority of their supporters). Obama is "custom-tailoring" his campaign just as the GOP candidates are, but to fit the wishes of the Latino population. It's the same story of the candidates pandering to their respective voting population.
As for the media stations, they're doing the exact same thing. Appealing to their audience. People want to hear about reforms that affect them directly. The only sad thing is that issues have to become heated and controversial before they get airtime or attention from either side of the candidates, no matter how important or necessary they are.
I think Obama is trying to win over the Latino community, but he is making a lot of people upset in doing so. In his SOTU speech he told the viewers he wanted the illegal immigrants deported, but later he says he wants the students that don't have their citizenship to ba able to earn it. Obama is trying to get an arousle out of the Latino community and he is succeeding.
The issue of immigration is an issue that has two drastically different sides. As shown in the article, Latinos advocate for acts such as the DREAM Act which would benefit them greatly. Also, since the Latino population is a huge demographic in which a large majority vote democratic it is important for Obama to campaign towards their views in this election year. It is also important that he doesn't upset other demographics because of this choice. That would also be detrimental to his campaign. Obama must search for a medium between the two if he wants to win the election this year.
I think illegal immigrants need to go back to their country because it it taking away from the American people. Although Obama may be for immigration he is only saying he is so that way he will not loose their vote and not make them mad at him. But if immigrants are wanting to come to America they need to become Americans citizens and not stay illegally!
i think its great that mr. obama is trying to get the latinos and hispanics more involved in politics. most of them come to our country knowing nothing about our country nor our president, so hes merely helping them in a way to better understand how this country is run. also, alot of hispanics and latinos come over to america knowing no english what so ever so targeting them and translating things into their language is helping them to better understand. hispanics are becoming the majority, so i think what obama is doing for them is good. (...but i think they should make a better effort at trying to learn english.)
It’s very clear that Republicans are alienating Hispanics by vowing to veto the DREAM act, increasing the amount of deportations and cracking down on illegal immigrants. But despite this, Obama is smart to tailor pitches to Latinos. Any drop in support from Latinos could hurt his chances for reelection. There is no doubt that the number one problem we have today is that of jobs and the economy, but all the same, immigration reform is a major and urgent issue. Obama has been outspoken in his commitment to fixing America’s immigration system and it is this direct mindset that will gain him support of Latinos.
Obama's is definitely being smart by targeting the Hispanics. However, our immigration process is rigorous for a reason. I don't think that making it easier is going to benefit our nation in anyway. The loopholes in our system are way to open. They need to be closed, there is this thing called over population that will happen if we make the immigration process easier. It's also unfair to Americans who have gone through the system and worked hard to become a citizen. I also agree that this news probably hasn't played on English channels for a reason, obviously it's a little sketchy. There are ways to reform the system to make it more modern without corrupting the system and allowing anybody and everybody into the country.
I think it's a good thing that Obama wants to make changes to our immigration laws, and has already begun to set the ground work for the next president to follow in his foot steps, if Obama isn't returning. But, Obama back in the president's seat seems to be a growing idea in this article if the Latino population has their way. Because at the rate that the republican candidates are digging their graves, it may not even be a race to the white house this election year due to their strong ideas about the immigration laws. It'll be interesting to see how the votes come out with the Latino population's input.
Basically, immigration is a huge issue in the United States right now. We seem to be split up into two sides of the situation and neither party will budge to meet the other's beliefs. As seen in this post, Obama reformed immigration laws without confronting congress. This is causing a huge debate with people like Smith who said,“The Obama administration has a pattern of abusing administrative authority to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, unfortunately, the decisions made by President Obama seem to be more influenced by campaign politics and liberal constituencies rather than sound policy for the good of our country.
Obama talks to latinos Americans to try and get his votes up. I think it goes either way, he could be just giving us Latinos what we want to hear in hopes to be reelected. But apart of me wants to believe he truly cares about keeping us satisfied. But I don't necessarily think immigration laws are what are going to get him our votes. From my family's perspective it's better not to have so many immigrants, because according to my grandmother they are just taking more of our jobs.
I believe that discriminating against Latinos is unfair. Obama's administration is doing good by helping the Latino community. His policies on illegal immigration should be heard for what they are. If there are illegal immigrants in the country but they are here getting an education or working for our American companies then the law should be somewhat reformed. Latinos are a huge part of the American community and society and they should not be shortchanged for everything they have done to make it to the melting pot.
This is a horrible idea. All Obama is doing with this new pitch is telling illegal immigrants that he will modify the way that green cards are issued, (to the point that they are just handed out), in return for the Hispanic community's vote in the upcoming Presidential Election. This is absolutely absurd! People think that the Republican Nominees are crazy, but a President willing to open our borders, hand out green cards, and allow outsiders to determine the outcome of the election, just to be reelected, THAT'S CRAZY!
Obama has promised to the Latin American community to put immigration as his 'top priority' but has failed to do so. The unemployment rate for hispanics has gone up from 10.0% to 10.5% since Obama has taken office. In order to increase his chances next year in 2012, he needs to fulfill his promises to the hispanic community because more and more hispanics are not trusting him and planning on not giving him their vote next year.
It's really unfortunate that race plays such a prominent role in our political system. It's not as though anyone is to blame, but it just bothers me that political candidates have to tread so carefully when it comes to immigration policy. I wish it were possible for our political system to be racially neutral.
I think obama wants more people to vote for him and he wants them to trust him. He says that when he gets reelected, he will make some changes. In this article, it says that Obama is targeting latinos and wants them to trust him and vote for him. It also talks about immigration and how they will manage it in the future. Obama wants Latinos to go to his side and he says that he will help them and support them. He also wants to change the immigration policies and try to make some changes to help the Latinos. I think it is not a good idea for Obama to get reelected, but that is my opinion. If he does get reelected, I hope he does what he says and make a change.
In my opinion President Obama and his "We can't wait" drive customized for Latino audience is gonna cost him a lot. The president keeps talking about everything he is doing for Latinos, witch to many of them it really isnt a lot. His trying to help but hasnt really been successful. Obama is getting a lot of attention from latinos but not enough from others. Most people havent even heard of this "We can't wait" drive, unless they are Latino voters. The president is trying to get a lot of votes from Latinos,and so far has got most of them.But as he is doing this, he is losing a lot of other votes from the rest of the people.
As this is an election year,its understandable that immigration would be an issue for both the Democrats and Republicans. However it seems that immigration is only important during election year. Many Hispanics/Latinos do see that immigration is either to harsh or splits up famalies or that it is mostly them sent back. Mind you we do want them sent back,it seems that several people are concerned with deportation and green cards but there are several hispanics who that is not a concern. They want a good leader and somebody thats going to protect the 'Dream'. :D
It looks like that Obama might get re-elected because Mitt Romney and many other republican nominees are ignoring a good majority of the swing voters like the Hispanic community. Obama wants to lessen the amount of deportees because while some wont admit it they are necessary to keep the balance in the economy its like Steve Colbert said to congress (on illegal immigration)"the obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables.And if you look at recent obesity statistics, you'll see that many Americans have already started". While Romney and other republican nominees swear to strike down bills like the DREAM Act that would keep hard working people from joining in on the American dream, Obama will be helping those that have already gotten this far in their eduction to come and join the work force like any other American.
In order for Obama to win the reelection, he has to get a large percent of votes from Latinos. I think that his strategy of targeting the latino population by making it easier for them to have legal status is really going to get them to be in favor of him. This focus towards them will definitely bring up his support by latino voters but will it polarize the country? Republicans have very different ideas about immigration and their policies can seem creul to latinos. In this case, It has its risks.
Immigration has always been an issue. It isn't something new, and people know what the laws are. I feel that with our economy we need to continue worrying about it. Moving to the US without the correct paperwork, no matter what country you're from, is illegal. However, I feel that if you are a criminal you should be deported first, and if you are willing to get a green card you should be given enough time receive it. Obama is trying to please everyone, and I think that's great, but eventually he's going to upset someone.
I think that it's great the President Obama is trying to include Latino's in his plan for America. With the inclusion of Latinos, seeing as they are fairly predominant in America, President Obama is really making an effort "to change America". He is trying to make reforms for immigration that make it more fair for the Latinos already living in America and easier for legal ones to enter.
Well, obviously Obama is going to get a majority of the latinos vote. California, Florida, and Texas are going to go crazy for Obama. For one he is putting the Latino's family in priority, Obama saids, "But there are more families being kept together as a result of the changes.” In a way not many see, that is a good thing especially when immigrants have kids in the U.S. and sometimes separated from their mother if ever deported.
This is absolutely no surprise to see that a Specific s\race is on Obama's side.
It happens in every election. this strategy is used and in this case it will be very effective since the Hispanic Portion of the population of the voters is very large and this will definitely help Obama add more to his head start and advantage in the election. Obama used the same kind of strategy last election also and it worked so i believe this was a very good move on his side in order to win the election.
The fact that he goes after specific group of people is one of the main reasons i believe he has the most chance in the election.
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