The midterm elections demonstrated the power of the Latino vote
> across the United States. And in this strength there is something
> quite new.
> Hispanics make up 15 percent of the nation’s population, and while
> we don’t yet have the political representation we deserve, more
> Latino politicians will take office in January. There will be 24
> Hispanic lawmakers in Congress, one more than before; and the U.S.
> will also have two Latino governors and two senators.
> But, interestingly, most of the Hispanics who claimed victory on
> Nov. 2 are not committed to the defense of undocumented immigrants
> — they are more conservative. This is certainly new. The U.S. has
> moved to the right, and so have many Latino politicians — among
> them a new generation of Hispanic Republicans who support measures
> that essentially attack the undocumented in this country.
> Not too long ago, most Latinos in office defended immigrants,
> whether they were here legally or not. For decades, this has been a
> tradition followed by members of both political parties. For
> evidence, look to the efforts of the three Cuban-born Republican
> congressional lawmakers of Florida — Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario
> Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ross-Lehtinen — who are working hard for
> national immigration reform.
> But this honorable and generous custom of fighting for immigrant
> rights is ending. So many of the new Hispanic Republicans about to
> take their seats in Congress and move into governors’ mansions based
> their campaigns on going after the undocumented.
> + Susana Martinez, the first Hispanic woman to win a governorship
> in the United States, wants to deprive undocumented immigrants of
> their ability to get driver’s licenses in New Mexico. And she said
> she would revoke those already issued.
> + Brian Sandoval, Nevada’s newly elected governor, has declared on
> his website (www.briansandoval.com) that he opposes amnesty for
> undocumented immigrants, opposes issuing driver’s licenses to them
> and is in favor of imposing additional penalties on employers who
> hire them.
> + Unlike his predecessor Mel Martinez, Marco Rubio, the newly
> elected senator from Florida, doesn’t support amnesty for the 11
> million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. And he also has
> said that the children of undocumented immigrants, who have spent
> the majority of their lives in the U.S., shouldn’t be allowed to stay.
> + Five new Republican congressmen — Jaime Herrera of Washington,
> Francisco Canseco and Bill Flores of Texas, Rafael Labrador of
> Idaho, and David Rivera of Florida — campaigned on everything from
> tightening the U.S.-Mexico border to taking away the few meager
> benefits allowed to the undocumented.
> While one might assume that this new wave of Hispanic Republicans
> won their seats with the help of Hispanic voters, this is not true.
> On Nov. 2 most Latino voters cast ballots for Democrats (64 percent)
> rather than Republicans (34 percent), according to data from the Pew
> Hispanic Center. These numbers are very similar to those of the 2008
> election, in which President Barack Obama won the Hispanic vote (67
> percent), trouncing Republican John McCain (31 percent). It seems
> this new generation of conservative politicians was elected because
> non-Hispanic voters were persuaded that they were the best
> candidates for the job, regardless of ethnicity.
> In fact, enthusiasm for some of these newly elected Republicans is
> so strong that Florida Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart told me in an
> interview that Rubio might one day be a candidate for vice president
> — or even president.
> It is, indeed, a new day for Latinos in politics.
> P.S.: In an Election Day surprise, Senate leader Harry Reid of
> Nevada won his re-election bid thanks to Hispanic voters who
> supported the Democrat over Republican Sharron Angle, 68 percent to
> 30 percent. Now is the moment for Reid to fulfill his campaign
> promise to submit the Development, Relief and Education for Alien
> Minors Act to the Senate before January.
> The future of at least 800,000 undocumented youths and adults
> depends on Reid’s being true to his word. This is an issue that must
> be on the table when President Obama meets with the Republican
> leadership on Nov. 18 — without the president’s support, the DREAM
> Act cannot be realized.
By Jorge Ramos Avalos
© 2010 Jorge Ramos
(September 27, 2010)
