Thread: Deportation foes turn attention to Hillary Clinton

Deportation foes turn attention to Hillary Clinton

Clinton hasn't opined at length on immigration in nearly six years. | Getty
CloseBy REID J. EPSTEIN | 2/26/14 11:35 PM EST

Immigration reform advocates, tired of Washington dysfunction and President Barack Obama’s refusal to halt an aggressive deportation policy, are turning to a new target: Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has backed a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but during the 2008 campaign or as secretary of state, she never weighed in publicly on the Obama administration’s policy of increasing the number of deportations of undocumented immigrants. And with legislation to create a pathway to legalization all but dead in the GOP-controlled House, reform activists have made deportations their top priority.

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Cesar Vargas, a co-director of the Dream Action Coalition, said there are many questions Clinton must answer, whether she submits herself to the public during a book tour later this year, during protests outside events she holds in the meantime or if and when she announces a 2016 presidential bid.

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“Will a President Hillary Clinton continue the enforcement machine from the Obama administration?” Vargas asked. “Would she provide administrative relief that people are asking for right now? Would you keep my family together? That’s a very simple question that she has to answer.”

Obama hasn’t acted unilaterally on deportations, claiming it’s outside his authority and something Congress must address. But activists aren’t buying it and say they’ll make sure the next Democratic nominee — whoever that is — gets their message.

Clinton, especially, also represents a way to bank-shot pressure on Obama. Activists admit that she’s highly unlikely to break from Obama — especially this far ahead of the 2016 race — but they say by putting a spotlight on her, they can highlight displeasure with Obama and recruit a high-profile ally.

“If Obama doesn’t do something significant soon to provide relief to the 11 million people, Latinos are going to make life miserable for Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and anybody who aspires to replace Obama,” said Roberto Lovato, the co-founder of the California-based Latino community organizing group Presente.org.

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“The good news for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and the Democrats that will succeed Obama is that Obama is going to get a lot of the pressure right now,” Lovato said. “The bad news is that they’re going to be facing even worse pressure than Obama because of the frustration levels that will ensue if Obama continues to do nothing.”

Clinton’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this story. A Biden spokeswoman declined to comment.

Putting Clinton in the cross hairs was discussed this weekend at United We Dream’s annual congress in Phoenix, according to officials and others who participated in the strategy sessions. The so-called Dreamers elected overwhelmingly to retrain their focus from congressional legislation for comprehensive reform to pressuring the Obama administration to change its deportation policy.

“We expect Democrats, including the Democratic leadership, to come out and pressure the president,” said Cristina Jimenez, managing director of United We Dream. “We believe Hillary Clinton and others also have the power to stand up for what is right and lay out their thinking and their concerns on the state of the immigration community and the need for action.”

April 5 looms as a key date for top Democrats to pledge allegiance to the cause of altering Obama’s deportation policy because it’s expected the Obama administration will have deported its 2 millionth person around that date. The National Day Labor Organizing Network is planning dozens of marches across the country in protest.

The group is also recruiting key Democrats to join the protest — with the implicit threat that those lawmakers could become targets if they don’t join in.

The next step is the specific actions that are going to occur and they have to include Hillary,” said Alfredo Gutierrez, a former Arizona state senator who is a Phoenix-based immigration activist and author. “There has to be a statement that’s much more credible and much more emphatic than she has been. Soaring rhetoric and pretty words aren’t going to do it any longer.”

There are already signs that pressure about deportations is changing minds among senior Democrats in Congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told Telemundo that Obama should exercise more discretion about who is deported. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a Las Vegas paper last week that Obama should “do what he can to take a look at deportations” administratively.

“There is going to be more pressure on House Democrats who have shown an inclination to be responsive to the reform movement,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice. “It’s been relatively easy for them to be for reform, but it will be another thing for them to pressure Obama.”

Clinton last opined at length on immigration policy during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Then, she was hurt when she changed course and ultimately opposed then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants in New York State.

She said then that she would introduce legislation calling for a path to legalization — not citizenship as is the case in the comprehensive reform bill the Senate passed in June — within the first 100 days of her presidency.

“We need to bring the immigrants out of the shadows, give them the conditions that we expect them to meet, paying a fine for coming here illegally, trying to pay back taxes, over time, and learning English,” Clinton said at a February 2008 debate in Texas. “If they had committed a crime, then they should be deported. But for everyone else, there must be a path to legalization.”

Former Kansas state Rep. Delia Garcia, who is recruiting Latinos and young elected officials for the Ready for Hillary super PAC, said she believes Clinton wants to stop deporting so many people. “I do know that she wants to do something about it,” Garcia said.

The immigration landscape has shifted dramatically as of late. The Senate last year passed an immigration reform bill containing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but that bill is dead in the House and it’s unclear whether the GOP leadership will move any measure this year.

Among progressive activists now, those holding out for Congress to pass comprehensive legislation are in the minority. But they also don’t want to let the GOP off the hook.

Eliseo Medina, a longtime union official who organized the Fast for Families tent on the National Mall in the fall and around the country this month, said there needs to be pressure on Obama and Democrats to stop deportations but not at the expense of failing to assign adequate blame to House Republicans.
“One of the things that I’d hate for us to do is to lose focus on the Republicans because we can’t afford to let them get away with what they’re doing, saying one thing and doing another,” Medina said. “It’s a question of timing. When is it right to press for administrative action? If you do it too soon, then the Republicans, all they have to do is wait us out and they’ll think that somehow the pressure will lay off them.”

Like the pressure on Obama to halt deportations over the past few months, the effort to ensnare Clinton and other Democrats in the immigration debate is beginning far outside the Beltway among grass-roots activists.

Neidi Dominguez, a Los Angeles-based strategist with the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance, said activists view Clinton and congressional Democrats — along with senior administration officials like Valerie Jarrett and Cecilia Munoz — as suitable proxy targets for Obamacentric pressure.

“These are people that are close to the president, and we know they are part of these conversations,” Dominguez said. “We want them to be folks that are vocally in support of stopping all deportations and bringing relief to the 11 million right now.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...#ixzz2v0zBsMsX

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