SB 1070, the promised DREAM Act veto, and "Self-Deportation". These are immigration stances Mitt Romney's has embraced in the primary and, needless to say, also three big problems that he has with Latino voters, problems which he cannot Etch-A-Sketch his way out of. But what makes Romney's immigration stances perilous to Latinos is that they derive from a common source: Kris Kobach and others like him that may be potential candidates in a Romney administration to lead immigration policy and immigration enforcement.
Kris Kobach, author of notorious anti-immigrant laws like Arizona' SB 1070 and Alabama's HB56, has been a close adviser to the Romney camp. It's very likely, Mitt Romney expected Kobach to be just an instrument that he could use to get him through the tough primaries. Romney seemed like he was going to dump his far-right position on immigration while using Senator Marco Rubio to pivot toward the center on immigration and recover the Latino vote. Back in April, Romney even went so far to distance himself by calling Kobach merely a "supporter."
Romney, however, is realizing that it isn't easy to publicly oust Kobach the way he would have liked. Kobach hasn't gotten the memo, as he has said both that he is as close to Romney as ever, and that Marco Rubio's alternative proposal to the DREAM Act falls short of his test (whatever that means). Given Romney's proclivity to appease the far right, it is of solid probability that Romney would install Kris Kobach as Secretary of Homeland Security or Director of Immigration Custom Enforcement.
SB 1070, meanwhile, is still in the hands of the Supreme Court. But regardless of what the Court decides, Kris Kobach-- with Mitt Romney's validation-- would certainly press forward making SB 1070 and "self-deportation" the standard of targeting Latinos across the country. This would entail measures that we've seen in Alabama which chased away the migrant workers, breaking the back of the local farming economy. Moreover, state laws granting in-state tuition to undocumented students would be once again challenged in court. In-state tuition laws have been a target of Kobach ever since he filed suit against Kansas.
We would unquestionably see an unfettered ICE agency and state police departments with wider license to target individuals with brown skin or spanish accents. The dragnet would apprehend not only undocumented immigrants but also Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban-Americans, and perhaps a beach-tanned caucasian who happened to speak spanish at the wrong place at the wrong time! A quick trip to the store could result with a deportation order or deportation itself. These are not hypothetical scenarios but real cases that have occurred even under the Obama administration. Such is the case of a U.S. Army soldier's wife, who after being stopped for a minor traffic violation found herself threatened with deportation while her husband is stationed overseas or an American citizen who was mistakenly deported to Colombia.
Even more alarming, Latinos would see an increase in conduct that is now the subject of lawsuit by the Justice Department against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. According to the Justice Department's complaint, there were instances where Maricopa county employees called Latinos derogatory names such as as "wetbacks," "Mexican bitches," and "stupid Mexicans," or cases of officers physically mistreating Latinos in routine traffic stops such as when a Latina woman and U.S citizen, who was five-months pregnant, was stopped pulled out of her car and slammed stomach first. Indeed, it would be open season to lawfully discriminate against Latinos.
While Latinos are already familiar with Mitt Romney's own position on immigration, the make up of his administration is not yet evident. However, with Kris Kobach shaping Mitt Romney's immigration policy, the verdict is clear that he or others like him will be top candidates at the helm of Romney's immigration policy and enforcement.
Follow Cesar Vargas on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@drmcapitolgrou
Rev. Al Sharpton: Don't Let Them Purge You
David Leopold: Marco Rubio's Immigration Pivot: A Search for Solutions or Politics as Usual?
Rep. Luis Gutierrez: New York Times: "There Is One Important Thing Mr. Obama Could Do Right Now..."
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
The Army soldier's wife was an illegal immigrant. She had no legal right to be in this country, because the paperwork had not been completed. The American citizen mistakenly deported to Colombia gave a fake name to the police when she was arrested for a theft charge, and continued to claim this false identity throughout the entire deportation process. It was not until eight months later, after her family found her on facebook, that she agreed to return to America.
So unless you actually are an illegal immigrant, or you manage to convince ICE by your own lies that you are an illegal immigrant to get a free plane trip, you don't have to worry about being deported.
It really is a brilliant strategy to generate legal fees for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, from which he sprang. It is a legal version of vulture capitalism at the expense of taxpayers, and in the service of white nationalism.
If that is you idea of America, then it is only a Latino problem. If that is not your idea of America, it is an American problem.
Romney’s plan to bust the teachers’ unions is just like other Republicans' who have launched efforts to strip away public sector unions’ collective bargaining rights. Unions are a way into the Middle Class for immigrants and Republican efforts to make over the nation into a so-called “right to work” collective is a classic something for nothing Republican scam to keep minorities and the working poor down and to strip away the ability of unions to lend support to Democratic candidates, progressive issues and progressive legislation.
How cynical can a candidate be? I guess Romney and his Republican fiends think Hispanic and minority voters are stupid, really stupid. In 2010, in state after state Republicans ran ads featuring Latino-looking figures going under, over and around fences which are or are meant to depict our Southern border. Other Republican ads made false and misleading claims about the dangers of illegal immigrants to America. We were urged to be afraid, very afraid of the Republicans’ opponents. Such racist appeals were used by Republican Senate candidate Roy Blunt in Missouri, even though the last time Missouri was a “border state” was during the Civil War.
No one feels like they are above it. I'm latino, and I think I'm under the law just like everyone else ought to be.
http://www.examiner.com/article/is-this-pizza-chain-really-promoting-illegal-immigration
Only 75 out of the 242 countries in the world have a population of more than 11 million. The illegal population of the US is bigger than countries like Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, or Belguim.
So ask yourself what that number of people could do to change their own country if in fact the will existed and all of this supposed talent and boundless energy actually existed instead of what it seems like - that they are simply trying to moan about what they feel they are entitled to because they could walk across a line in the sand?
All studies show that many, many more Mexicans would move to the US if it were easier for them. What do you say about a country whose citizens have so little loyalty (or even concern) for it? How do those same people feel about this country?
I think the answers would be troubling.