Latinos who backed Obama are frustrated by lack of immigration overhaul

By Rob Hotakainen
rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com
Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010

WASHINGTON – As one of the first Latinos in the nation to endorse Barack Obama, Democratic state Sen. Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles campaigned hard for the president, but he's very disappointed now.

The reason: Obama failed to act on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws in his first year in office, as he promised to do when he ran for president.

"I think he's now in danger of breaking the spirit of solidarity and hope," Cedillo said. "More than a broken promise, it's the danger of breaking people's sense of any hope in the Latino community."

Immigration has taken a back seat to a host of many other important tough issues for Obama, including two wars, a struggling economy and a year-long effort to get Congress to pass a any kind of health care overhaul.

The president's defenders say it now would be politically impossible to add the volatile issue of immigration to the mix right now.

Cedillo doesn't buy that argument. He said the president knew he would be dealing with other big issues when he made promises to the Latino community during the campaign.

"Those were the conditions that he was campaigning under," Cedillo said. "It's not like those were surprises. I was so proud of him, at how firm and clear he was in those presidential debates. He really provided leadership."

While the president carried the Latino vote by large margins in 2008, many Republicans are out to capitalize on Latino dissatisfaction with Obama and Washington's Democratic leaders – just in time for the 2010 elections.

Republican candidates will gain ground with Latinos once they realize "that what the Democrats have offered is just a bunch of empty promises," said Hector Barajas, a communications consultant for the state Senate Republican Caucus.

He noted the president spent only about 10 seconds on immigration at the very end of his State of the Union speech last month.

Barajas said the issue has been particularly hot on Spanish talk radio ever since.

"It's what didn't happen," he said. "I mean, he spent more time talking about gays in the military than he did about providing some immigration reform plan."

Barajas said Latinos recognize that it has been a tough year for Obama and that an immigration plan may not be fully implemented immediately, but he said there's not even a plan for moving forward, let alone introducing any kind of legislation.

"I think the Democratic Party needs to wake up and realize that you can only fool the Latino community once and for so long," Barajas said. "There's a great sense of frustration, there's a great sense of anger, and there's a very big letdown" that will drive more Latinos to the Republican Party, he said.

Democrats, particularly the president, face "a scary situation," said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute, a nonprofit public policy center at California State University, Los Angeles.

"It's really a colossal hassle for the administration, that there is so much impatience from so many groups, including Latinos that are hell-bent on having an immigration reform package in 2010, an election year," he said. "It's difficult in any season in any year, but this is a very precarious year for Obama."

Regalado said he doesn't believe Democrats will switch to the Republican Party in big numbers. Rather, "what it does threaten is that Latinos stay home," he said.

He said Republicans are exploiting the issue "with good reason" because it's a no-win situation for Democrats: They lose votes from Latinos if they don't come up with a comprehensive solution to immigration, or they lose votes from more conservative members of their base if they do.

Obama was hugely popular among Latinos, receiving 75 percent of the more than 10 million votes they cast in the 2008 presidential election.

The White House said Friday that it remains committed to passing a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.

White House spokesman Adam Abrams said the president wants to sign a bill that strengthens border enforcement and cracks down on employers "who exploit undocumented workers to undercut American workers." And he said the president wants to resolve the status of approximately 10.8 million people who are here illegally, "that they should have to register, pay a penalty for breaking the law and meet other obligations of legal immigrants such as paying taxes, or immediately leave the country."

"The president told members of both parties that if they can fashion a plan to deal with these problems, he is eager to work with them to get it done," Abrams said.

Cedillo, who campaigned for Obama in California, Texas and Nevada and debated on his behalf on Spanish-language radio, said the president and Democratic leaders need to show Latinos they're committed to them "not only during the campaign, but after the election."

Last week, a report by America's Voice, a group that backs new comprehensive immigration policies, said immigration could be the deciding factor in as many as 40 congressional races in November.

"I would be really concerned if I was the White House, if I was a member of Congress," Cedillo said.

Republicans are most optimistic about their chances in California's Central Valley, where they've targeted four legislative seats.

Tim Clark, who's working with state Senate Republicans on those races, said immigration issues in California are taking a back seat to the economy, which has been hurting Latinos more than the general population.

In the Central Valley, he said, Latinos and others are blaming Democratic leaders for siding with environmentalists over jobs in the state's long-running fights over water.

Clark said the Central Valley will be "ground zero" in this fall's election and that Republicans are busy registering voters.

"We're seeing a very positive reception from a number of different voter demographics, including the Latino population," he said.

Cedillo said he welcomes any wooing of Latinos from Republicans.

He said many Latinos "sit really poised" to be Republicans since many of them are socially moderate, conservative, religious, hardworking and opponents of big government. But he said they've been driven away by the party's hard-line stance against immigration.

"I would love for them to stop changing Latinos from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party," he said. "I'd love for the day to come that this shrill anti-immigration hysteria that emerges from so many of their members and their leaders would stop."

Democratic state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo explains his disappointment with President Barack Obama and the immigration issue.

"I think he's in danger of breaking the spirit of solidarity and hope. More than a broken promise, it's the danger of breaking people's sense of hope in the Latino community."

STATE SEN. GILBERT CEDILLO, D-Los Angeles

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