|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
villages/hispanic/ AP Headlines Update Page
 |
Study on Hispanic issues to be
released during DNC |
|
|
Embattled Puerto Rico senator to seek
re-election |
|
|
Latinoamericanos sin suerte en Maratón de
Beijing |
|
|
Daddy Yankee domina listas de
ventas con "Talento de barrio'' |
|
|
'La Misma Luna' sweeps Imagen
Awards |
villages/hispanic/ AP Headlines Update Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
New opportunities section added
to our Career Center
New QuickSearches
by location and industry, salary tools, more at the
Career Center
|
|
|
Immigrant Groups Strategize for Presidential Campaign
By Melanie Reynard
New America Media
Jul 02, 2008
As the election
campaign gathers steam, immigrant rights groups are paying attention to
what the candidates are saying (and not saying) when it comes to
immigration. In a teleconference organized by New America Media, three
spokespeople from major immigrant rights groups defined their priorities
for the presidential campaign and beyond.
Recent polls suggest
immigration is not necessarily the number one issue for the general
election, but that it is a wedge issue and one that could increase in
importance as the campaign progresses. For example, it can be key in
states with large Latino populations, such as Arizona, Colorado, Nevada,
New Mexico and Florida. Several Asian American organizations are seeking
to mobilize Asian American voters in ten states (Hawaii, California,
Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington and New
York).
The groups are paying
close attention to the candidates’ statements on the campaign trail and
trying to determine what legislative opportunities exist. Ali Noorani,
the newly appointed head of the National Immigration Forum, emphasized
the important role the media plays in “shining a very clear light on
Senator McCain and Obama’s statements.” Holding candidates accountable
for their statements is crucial as they become more caught up in the
fervor of campaign rhetoric, with “Senator McCain one day saying
something nice about immigration reform when he is speaking to Latinos,
but the next day saying something negative,” Noorani said. The media
needs to closely monitor for consistency because “the next six months
defines what we may very well achieve as we head into 2009 with a new
Congress and a new administration,” according to Noorani.
Karen Narasaki,
President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center,
called Senator McCain’s current focus on enforcement a misguided
approach. His “comprehensive” approach from two years ago was
preferable, she said. The most worrisome snafu in the immigration system
that is the backlog, with almost four million people estimated to be
waiting, according to Narasaki.
“Every year there is a
set amount of visas that are available,” she explained. “If they don’t
get used, they don’t roll over into the future. They just disappear and
die. State departments get backed up in processing those visas, and if
they don’t get allocated, they just die. The least we can do is work on
the visas that were allocated in the current system.” For Asian
Americans, there is a backlog of five to six years, and for Mexican
nationals, there is a seven to 10 year wait if you are the spouse or
minor child of a permanent legal resident, Narasaki added.
According to Narasaki,
these statistics are unacceptable. “You cannot sustain that. You cannot
keep families separated for that long.” Visa recapture legislation such
as H.R. 5882 (introduced in May by Senator Honda), is “one of the few
bills that have the actual opportunity of getting done this year because
of bipartisan support.” Narasaki said this is also an opportunity to
hold Congress’ “feet to the fire” and see if those who claim that they
are for immigrants, just against illegal immigration, really mean what
they say.
Legislation to clear
the backlog of bureaucracy is much needed, as the current failure of
national reform has left local municipalities grappling with a patchwork
quilt of shortsighted attempts at solutions. Clarissa Martinez, Senior
Director of State and Local Advocacy Policy for the National Council of
La Raza, remarked that the “failure of comprehensive immigration reform
has caused the shift to many state and local bodies trying to intervene
on the issue, which we think are chaotic results.”
“Instead of one set of
policy to deal with immigration,” she said, “we have multiple county and
city governments trying to deal with issue.” Over the last two years,
local pundits and nativist groups have fabricated a “conventional
wisdom” that a politician must be either evasive or punitive with
regards to immigration, she said. But she hoped that the tremendous
energy in immigrant communities could be used to change that.
Ali Noorani suggested
immigrant rights groups are “not only focusing on candidates themselves,
but the apparatus around candidates and local campaign offices. The more
and more we are able to infiltrate these campaigns with requests and
demands from the community, the more they see it as their demand they
need to represent what they are hearing back to candidate.”
Noorani said he was not
afraid that a piecemeal approach to immigration reform now might
actually hurt the chances of comprehensive immigration reform later. The
xenophobia and anti-immigration laws of the last 20 years must be
demolished gradually, Noorani said, and it would be a false assumption
to believe that one legislative win would sufficiently dismantle that
wall of anti-immigration legal precedent. “Now we have earned the
ability to remove that wall piece by piece,” he added.
Related Article:
ICE Plans to Deport All Undocumented by 2012
|
