[Editor’s Note: Dr. Hutchinson recently interviewed U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL), a point man in the immigration reform movement.]
EOH: What is your take on the growth of the Hispanic population and the effect on the political front?
LVG: Democrats had real difficulty in winning back theP. The political landscape comes down to determining a few states. In the last election, Barack Obama carried not only Florida, but also New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, New York, Illinois and California. These states have a common feature, a large Latino voter constituency. In 2008, two million more Latinos participated in the electoral process compared to 2004, and Barack Obama got 7 out of 10 of those votes. He communicated effectively with the Latino community. One issue he used was that he was going to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. That drove a lot of the Latino community out to vote. A lot of people think “Latino and immigration, they weren’t born here, they’re not American citizens.” The fact is, 7 out of 10 Latinos are American citizens. For youths under 18, it’s 9 out of 10 likely to be an American citizen. There are 8 million Latinos that are permanent residents of the United States who can apply for American citizenship. Every year 500,000 Latinos turn 18 and can register to vote.
EOH: Did you attend the meeting at the White House on comprehensive immigration? Are you satisfied with the Democratic Party?
LVG: We had a good meeting at the White house with President Obama and his top policy advisors three weeks ago. The only thing that was discussed was immigration, what kinds of administrative action the President could take to alleviate the separation of families that is occurring throughout immigrant communities. We have a lot of destructive impact; young kids graduating from high school, going to college, getting deported. Men and women serving in the armed forces whose spouses are under order of deportation. We have 4 million American citizen children who have one or both parents undocumented and getting deported by the thousands. Four hundred thousand people were deported last year from the United States, a record number since the 1950s. The majority have no criminal background; men and women working in this country that are undocumented. What we asked them to do was to say if you’re a Dream Student, you came here young, three or four years old, you came with your mom or dad. You didn’t violate the law. You were too young. You want to go to college or into the armed forces. You know what, Mr. President: You’re not going to deport them. You can’t grant them legalization, give them a green card, or bring them on the road to citizenship. But you can say “I’m going to set them aside.” Where there are American children involved, you’re going to set their parents aside and have them come forward unless they have committed a serious criminal offense. We talked about children, both those going to college and those younger and their parents, to see what kind of administrative action the President could take. We encouraged him to take the action because the President does have the prosecutorial discretion. He can promulgate regulations to get this done. We think the Democrats can do more. Democrats are by and large pro-immigrant. The President has a pro-immigrant policy. But he spent his first two years and didn’t act. He didn’t make it a top priority as he said he would when he was running for President. The Dream Act passed the House of Representatives last fall, 216 to 198; 208 were Democrats and 8 Republicans. Every last member of the Black Caucus voted for the Dream Act as well as every member of the Asian Pacific Caucus and Hispanic Congressional Caucus. It has broad appeal. But the Democrats waited until the fall where we only got 55 votes in the Senate. You don’t get anything enacted upon in the Senate. We want the President to do more, to use his power. A young immigrant Latino, 21, graduating from college, said “All I want Barack to do is to defend me as much as the other side wants to hurt me.” In my opinion, there is no home for the Latino immigrant community in the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has to open its arms and embrace the community.
EOH: Do you feel the Republican Party abandoned the Latino vote?
LVG: What they have essentially done with Latino immigrants is demonize and criminalize us. They say it’s those scary people coming here to destroy America. In campaigning for Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada, I saw some of the anti-Harry Reid commercials. I saw some of the pictures of my Latino brothers and sisters that they put up. It scared me. I want to make sure our immigration system, every gang-banger, drug dealer, everyone who causes havoc in immigrant communities across this country, we should get rid of them. That is not the true face of our community. Those millions of voters resent it. They are angered by it. That is why the Republican Party is doing such a poor job. There is a sense in the Latino community that President Barack Obama can do more, that he is withholding actions he can take because he is taking the community for granted. Part of this is that the immigrant activists are kind of tied. That has been a real problem. You think Democrat, you think immigrant. You think one and the same. Sometimes you don’t get sufficient change for the people. People come up to me and say, “Luis, be careful. We don’t want to let the Republicans into the White House. Barack can do more, and we are unhappy and dissatisfied.” There is that tension between “I want more, but I like the guy. I would like him a lot more if he would simply take some action.” You have a lot of popular support in the Latino community. It’s not whether he’s going to get the Latino vote, it’s how many? Ten million, 12 million, 14 million? How many will come out to vote?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
