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Miguel Perez: Time to say, "No Se Puede"

Posted February 2, 2010 at 8 p.m.

He spoke to the nation in a forthright State of the Union, and he confronted Republican lawmakers in an impressively sincere encounter last week. It’s time for President Barack Obama to fess up to Latinos.

It’s time for him to say: No Se Puede.

The campaign promise he made for last year cannot be accomplished this year, either. Comprehensive immigration reform will have to wait. The president needs to be as honest with Latinos as he has been with the rest of the nation.

After all, Latinos played a huge part in getting Obama elected, and if they begin to see him as just another devious Democrat, they are not likely to vote for him again.

When he finally spoke about immigration in his State of the Union address (as the very last topic he listed on his agenda), the 36 words he chose were so vague — so carefully selected to say absolutely nada that could be considered controversial — that the president lost a lot of respect from his pro-immigrant supporters.

He uttered more than 7,000 words in more than an hour, but it took him less than a minute to say, “We should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system — to secure our borders and enforce our laws and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.â€