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Thursday, December 13, 2007
Latinos say they are hurt by immigration debate, enforcement
More than half of U.S. Latinos — including citizens, legal residents and illegal immigrants — worry about being deported themselves or seeing a family member or close friend kicked out of the country, said a report released Thursday.
In addition, many said that the national debate over illegal immigration has made it more difficult for them to get a job or buy a home, said the report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington.
“Latinos are feeling a range of negative affects from the increased public attention and the stepped up enforcement measures that have accompanied the growing national debate over illegal immigration,” said Paul Taylor, acting director of the center.
The study found that a majority of Hispanics believe that the failure to enact an immigration overhaul in Congress has made life more difficult for all Latinos in the United States.
In lieu of Congressional action, states and local governments have approved an unprecedented number of laws, regulations and procedures to crack down on illegal immigration. The federal government has also stepped up workplace enforcement and is building more fences on the Southern border.
The Pew report, which is based on a nationwide survey, found that many Hispanics disapprove of these actions. Seventy-five percent said they opposed workplace raids, 79 percent said they did not like local police taking an active role in identifying illegal immigrants, and 55 percent said they disapproved of states checking for immigration status before issuing driver’s licenses.
To read the report, click here.
Immigration ads a staple in GOP primary
One features the bloody victims of Central American gang violence. Another warns that 800,000 foreigners are crossing the border every year. And another denounces driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.
Immigration ads are permeating the airwaves in early primary states more than ever before and experts say they could be a harbinger of what to expect in the general election.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney released an ad this week, going after Mike Huckabee’s immigration record. The spot compares the two former governors on the issue, saying that Romney “stood up and vetoed a bill to give in-state tuition for illegal aliens” while Huckabee supported such a measure in Arkansas. It also says that Huckabee “even supported tax-payer funded scholarships for illegal aliens.”
Bill Benoit, a professor at the University of Missouri’s Department of Communication who has studied political advertisements from the 1950s to the present, said the number of immigration ads this year is unprecedented.
Although the issue is playing out primarily in the GOP primary, Benoit said it could spill over to the general election, even if immigration is not voters’ top concern.
To read more, click here.
Two of the most controversial ads of the primary season — by long-shot Republican candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado — focused on immigration, his signature issue.
One spotlights Central American gangs such as MS-13 and shows bloody pictures of victims of gang violence. A voice-over says that the gangs are now on American soil “pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives” and blames the violence on “gutless politicians who refuse to defend our borders.”
John J. Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, predicted that Republicans will keep stressing immigration during the nomination campaign but that they will take a more cautious stance in the general election.
“They know that it could backfire if they overdo it,” he said. “Ads that seem nativist could turn off moderate voters and alienate the dwindling number of Latinos who still consider voting Republican.”