Immigration Policy: Will the Real Senator Clinton Please Stand Up?

One of the major media narratives since the Nevada caucuses, when entrance polls showed Clinton winning widely among Hispanic-Americans (64 percent to 25 for Obama), has been the presumption that the New York senator had the Latino vote similarly locked up on Tsunami Tuesday in California and other states.

The news that Ted Kennedy (and most of his organization) is now backing Obama has spurred a second look. The presumption that Clinton has been a leader on immigrant rights - spun heavily by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other surrogates - is not withstanding scrutiny of her actual record.

Add to that spin the way in which the race card has been deployed in recent weeks to divide Latino from black - I wrote about that in detail after witnessing those divide-and-conquer politics at work in Nevada - and previous assumptions about Clinton as an immigrant rights defender have begun to unravel in a way that could have consequences in the February 5 primaries and caucuses.

It's one thing to mouth slogans like "no woman is illegal" as Clinton did in Nevada earlier this month. But according to today's New York Sun, Clinton's true position is that some women and men are so "illegal" that she favors deporting them without any of the due process that the US Constitution guarantees:

"Anybody who committed a crime in this country or in the country they came from has to be deported immediately, with no legal process. They are immediately gone," Mrs. Clinton told a town hall meeting in Anderson, S.C., Thursday. On Wednesday, she told a crowd in North Bergen, N.J., that such criminals "absolutely" need to be deported. A day earlier, she told a rally in Salinas, Calif., that aliens with criminal records "should be deported, no questions asked."...

"No legal process," the New York senator said at a forum in Tipton, Iowa, according to a political news outlet, the Politico. "You put them on a plane to wherever they came from."

This has provoked important immigrant rights organizations and advocates - including perhaps the most important, Cecilia Muñoz, to correct the record:

"It's disturbing that she would make a statement like that, that we should deport everybody without due process of law," a vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, David Leopold, said. "That's a very disturbing statement. This country is all about due process of law."

"It is worrisome," an official with the National Council of La Raza, Cecilia Muñoz, said. "The semantics and nuances make or break families. As you can imagine, the sensitivity on these issues in the Latino community is very high."

...One subtext to the concern is that immigrant-rights advocates are still angry with President Clinton over legislation he signed in 1996 that effectively stripped judges of the power to block the deportation of foreigners convicted of an "aggravated felony." The term was broadly defined and has led to automatic deportations even for what some might consider minor offenses.

"How about two public urinations? How about driving a car recklessly and your sister dies in the passenger seat and you get deported for that?" a law professor at the University of California at Davis, Bill Hing, said...

While Mrs. Clinton's campaign stressed that she was referring to illegal aliens who commit crimes, it did not reply to a query about whether she favors automatic deportation of legal immigrants who run afoul of the law. In 2001, Mr. Kennedy introduced a bill to overturn part of the 1996 legislation, signed by Mr. Clinton, which made deportation automatic in many cases. The measure never got out of committee, but it had ten Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate. Mrs. Clinton was not among them.

"Mrs. Clinton keeps reminding us about going back to the 90s and talking about how great the 90s were," Mr. Leopold said. "If she's planning to bring back that approach to immigration, that's disturbing as well."

Ms. Munoz called the 1996 law "very ugly..."

The reopening of discussion on Clinton's record vs. rhetoric on immigration has refocused attention on her confused stance(s) during an October 30 candidate debate, when she took, in a matter of minutes, both sides of the dispute over whether undocumented immigrants should have drivers licenses:

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, a leading Clinton supporter whose proposals came under fire in that discussion, quickly withdrew his proposal after that debate, temporarily removing the subject from wider national media scrutiny.

But the Obama campaign is now launching an offensive to distinguish its candidate's unequivocal position in favor of drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, as well as differences between him and Clinton over whether each will tackle immigration reform in their first year in the White House:

The Illinois senator is differentiating himself in three key areas: driver's licenses, a promise to take up immigration reform his first year in office, and his background as the son of an immigrant (his father was Kenyan) and a community organizer in Chicago.

Obama made the promise to Latino leaders to take up immigration reform in his first year after Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of the Democratic caucus, said his party might not raise the divisive issue again until the next president's second term, assuming a Democrat wins.

Latino leaders felt betrayed. For them, an immigration overhaul is a top priority in light of state and local crackdowns on illegal immigrants and federal raids in workplaces across the country.

Clinton has not made such a promise, saying only that she would make her best efforts.

"Those issues are huge," said Obama supporter and state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, vice chairman of the California Latino Legislative Caucus....

John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said:

"Clinton and (Sen. John) Edwards have said no driver's licenses for unauthorized immigrants... Sen. Obama has said you get a driver's license if you know how to drive. And that message I think will resonate in the Latino community as we get closer to California."

Political consultant James Carville, a Clinton supporter, has sent various memos to Democratic politicians urging them to avoid the issue of drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, or oppose the concept altogether, citing polls that a majority of Americans do not favor them. Obama has bucked that counsel (and I think this is an example of what Obama meant when he spoke about the leadership qualities of former Republican President Ronald Reagan, who similarly took unpopular positions without backing down, and was popular in part for his lack of fear of what polls say).

The Latino electorate is diverse. In the Mid-Atlantic states, much of the population is of Caribbean descent, particularly Puerto Rican and Dominican. In South Florida, Cuban-Americans are the largest and most politically influential ethnic group (and those voters may surprise the conventional wisdom tomorrow in the non-binding Democratic beauty contest on the ballot there). In the West (and increasingly nationwide) Mexican-Americans are on the rise as a blockbusting political force. For that largest group, immigration reform is the dominant issue (of the thousands of questions that viewers sent to Univision for the Spanish-language station's Democratic presidential debate, 70 percent were about that topic).

Kennedy is widely (and accurately) viewed among Latino voters as the champion of immigrants in Washington, and his endorsement is already provoking a second look at both Obama and Clinton. It has certainly unleashed the Hispanic-American advocacy organizations in Washington to now speak out about Clinton's true record after many months of silence.

What was thought, just two days ago, to be a demographic vote locked up for Clinton may now be in play. And with important national Hispanic-American leaders like Cecilia Muñoz now questioning Clinton's record, and the Kennedy organization highlighting Obama's leadership in the immigration reform battle as, in the words of one Kennedy associate "a politically touchy subject the other presidential candidates avoided," the competition for Latino votes is now very much on again.

This report originally appeared at The Field, where Al Giordano covers the 2008 presidential campaign.

Follow Al Giordano on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlGiordano

Comments

[LaUrracca]

Great work, Al...as always.
Folks, you are reading a real journalist here.
I know that we are not used to it, but this is a man who does his homework, knows what he is talking about, and is not shilling for anyone.
Gracias, Al!

[ljsfolly]

What disturbs me the most about the woman vote is that so many women are willing to vote for Hillary just because she is female so they can say they voted the first woman into the office. That is a sickening way to use their vote for that one thing alone without looking very deep and believing whatever the clintons say as solid truth. When challenged about this point they either walk away or call you names not very nice and they accuse me of abdandoning my gender. This is scary and if it is going on here it is everywhere. What can be done to open their eyes? Not much. Like the bush supporters before them they will choose to believe what they do and not shake their foundation as if they saw the truth about one thing the whole would fall down.

[clr2]

Real reform: All ILLEGAL ALIENS need to be deported, those who hire ILLEGALS should be heavily fined, and we should return to the original intent of the 14th amendment and do away with anchor babies. We spend BILLIONS to provide an education and health care to people who don't belong here. We should use that money on our own citizens.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Call me dirty names if you want, but I think the US/Mexico border needs to be CLOSED. For an entire YEAR, in order to let both countries sort out their differences, and as a crime reduction measure. Mexico should not have a proxy vote in our elections, period. For that matter, nor should any other country. Mexico, with their trillion-dollar GDP, isn't fooling anyone anymore. They have an economy, they have able-bodied people, what they lack is independence. The greasy relationship between the two countries(yes, there's oil involved) has prevented them from reattaining it, and enabled career fatties like dear ol' Rush to have under-the-table help(AND drugs! Hi, Rush!)
imported from Mexico and points south. Wage slaves, if not actual ones. If you want to help the state of California pull its' socks up and start being responsible and running a balanced budget, you have to use that 'map' thing to deliniate where CA actually STOPS. 148 billion dollar annual budget and they still leech off the federal government. Sad. Dishonest? Probably. Big money in Big Government, 6- figure jobs, no public accountability, sunshine stories aimed at the public, taxes on the rise,
quality of life most likely on the decline.
Reason? Liberal policies, 'come one, come all'
immigration stuff.
Hillary's record? Who cares? If she's a doormat on immigration, she's not getting the job, at least not by my reasoning. The pandering needs to stop, and they need to start getting into structural and systemic stuff, if we're ever going to see things get turned around to where we can actually AFFORD to help other countries anymore. Let's reference that national debt, one time fast:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
Yeppers, 9.2...and counting.

[Palito]

Give me a break

All this nonsense is part of the attacks against Clinton aimed to undermine the latino voter support.

Do you think ANY candidate is going to say that they will allow non-citizens with a criminal record to stay? you gotta be delusional to even be proposing that. It would be political suicide for any candidate. Just to reach a legalization path will take a HUGE compromise and then you also want the people with crimes to be allowed to stay too? sorry, it just wont happen. Non-citizens (legal residents or not) with criminal history are routinely deported right now and will continue to be. They had their due process when they were on trial for their offenses. After they're convicted the law considers them subject to deportation with no exceptions except if they're going to be tortured at home.

And please, why is Obama lying? there will not be immigration reform in the near future. There is no political climate for it. Once the country enters into recession and unemployment goes up, forget about legalizing undocumented workers.

[drewdawgsea]

If Hillary is so competent and the Idol of women leaders, then why can she not run on her own record and without the lift that her husband is giving her? If her statement about MLK that it took a president to get the job done is accurate by her standings then how ironic then is it that it takes a man (her husband) to get her elected. Give us a break Hillary. The sexism stunt worked in New Hampshire but not this time. This is not about women vs men, this is all about Hillary, and I am sorry but she is not the best role model for women to look up to.

[midtown]

Al, good coverage. I follow your reporting for Narco Times, so I know you have your pulse on the Latino community.

[Ides]

Hillary Clinton says what you want to hear when you want to hear it and then apologizes later.

[mechaveste]

Let's set the record straight, especially since I worked in Bill Clinton's White House and know the battles we fought on immigration. Hillary's reference to "no legal process" for deportation of criminal aliens was shorthand speak for existing law and language in the various legislative proposals in 2007. Pprovisions were included to BAR undocumented persons from obtaining legal status if convicted of a felony, certain serious misdemeanors or three types of any misdemeanor. Once someone is ultimately determined to have committed a disqualifying crime, they are deportable and there is no further process through which they can petition to obtain legal status. Obviously, there has to be a legal process by which a person's criminal record is brought to light, but there are limits to how often that issue should be relitigated. More importantly, Senator Obama supported the immigration bill considered by the Senate in June 2007, that contained similar provisions. And he cast the same votes as did Senator Clinton on crime-related amendments. The real difference between the two candidates, is that Senator Clinton understands the nuances of this issue and knows there are no easy answers. For one thing, she understands that the 1996 changes in law caused great damage and has directly led to the increase in undocumented, since it eliminated certain provisions that would have allowed people to become legal. And before people start laying all of Bill Clinton's sins on her, he signed that bill because a Republican Congress (with Democratic support) sent him that bill and it was the only way to protect legal immigration especially for political asylum and refugees. Within weeks of signing that bill, we began to try to fix it--including enacting the Nicaraugan and Central American Relief Act in 1997, which provided legal status for thousands. We introduced the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act, which could have helped millions. We were stopped by the Republican Senate. Immigration is hugely complicated and you always get into trouble if you try to distill it into a few words for a soundbite.

[IndependentLady]

"Clinton's Latino Spin by Gregory Rodriguez
The Clinton campaign's assertion that Latinos historically haven't voted for black candidates is divisive -- and false. January 28, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez28jan28,0,1688217.column
If a Hillary Clinton campaign official told a reporter that white voters never support black candidates, would the media have swallowed the message whole? What if a campaign pollster began whispering that Jews don't have an "affinity" for African American politicians? Would the pundits have accepted the premise unquestioningly?
"The Clintons attempted to make South Carolina a 'Black thing', they underestimated both the intellect and evolution of the southern state."

[IndependentLady]

"Insensitivity was reflected in a recent issue of the New Yorker, when Clinton's veteran Latino political operative Sergio Bendixen was quoted as saying, "The Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates." That brief quote from an obscure politician has generated shock and awe in Democratic circles. It comes close to validating the concern that the Clinton campaign is not only relying on a brown firewall built on an anti-black base but is reinforcing it. A prominent Democrat who has not picked a candidate this year told me, "In any campaign I have been involved in, Bendixen would have been gone."

[DrColes]

We are not required to be law abiding? Illegal aliens are criminals. (Title 8 U.S. Code) Illegal Aliens and Immigration is NOT the same thing. Immigrant is a legal status granted by a sovereign country. We have to many folks who do not know and are ignorant or outright deceivers, confusing illegal alien workers calling them illegal immigrants with immigrants. Criminals did NOT build America; Citizens and LEGAL immigrants built it. 80% of the American people want an end to anarchy! This is NOT a Democrat, Republican, Independent issue. It's an American Issue.

[noexcuses]

you make many great, well-thought out arguements. I only hope that people read this with obhective eyes. Thank you for brining to light these issues on a subject I know little about.

[LittleBrother]

From a related thread:

She Did NOT say All Illegals should be sent back . Only those that have a Criminal Past in their Country & Those that Commit Crimes In the U.S.WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG ABOUT THAT?
__________­__________­__________­__________­____

In 2002, a friend of my brother began dating a guy from England. He was a sober alcoholic who'd overcome addiction and moved to the US to begin a new life; he's a chef, and got a good job in NYC. They eventually got married, and were living happily ever after.

Then one day INS goons turned up and took him away in handcuffs. Turns out that during his rowdy alcoholic days, he'd been arrested a few times for the equivalent of disorderly conduct. And he'd failed to list ALL his arrests on his documentation, which wasn't too surprising since that period was a blur to him.

For the next 18 months or so, the guy was in detention while they fought deportation. They lost.

After all, he had a Criminal Past in his Country, and had Committed the Crime of failing to thoroughly report his entire rap sheet In the U.S. The fact that the crimes were truly minor, and consistent with alcohol abuse, didn't matter one bit.

Eventually he was indeed deported; the INS judge was bound by Homeland Security laws. Since his wife had to keep her job (to pay for no end of fees and charges, and legal representation regardless of how doomed the outcome was going to be), she remained in the US.

Of course, once this "Illegal" was returned to sender, he began drinking again; both he and his wife were brokenhearted. At first they were determined not to let this outrageous injustice ruin their lives, but eventually they just wore out. I'm pretty sure they've divorced by now.

It's obviously a "worst-case scenario". But it's a valid example of what the hell's wrong with that. And it's easy to say, "Well, boo-freaking-hoo!" until you actually encounter something like this happening to someone you know.

[cynara]

I think Sen. Clintons immigration policy is very clear - she championed NAFTA, one of the leading causes of illegal immigration to this country. After NAFTA, the working conditions and wages in Mexico tanked, and that why we're having an immigration debate in the United States today. In order to compete with low Mexican factory wages, US companies cut workers and benefits, making remaining workers all the more sensitive to the competition of non-union undocumented workers flooding into the country. NAFTA and our blind eye policy towards worker abuses south of the border is the root cause illegal immigration. And the Clintons, instead of demanding Mexico raise its wages and follow its labor laws, to give US companies a chance to compete and Mexican workers a chance to make ends meet in their own country, championed NAFTA, which has exacerbated the situation for everyone.