[Sunday} on Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw cited NDN in asking Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) whether the weak showing of the Republicans these last few years with Hispanics was endangering their Party's ability to be a majority in the 21st century.
Regardless of your party affiliation, it is clear that Latinos were the decisive vote in this past election. It is also clear that they swung towards the Democrats. An excerpt from the full transcript of the interview (which is posted at NDN):
Senator Martinez: The fact of the matter is that Hispanics are going to be a more and more vibrant part of the electorate, and the Republican Party had better figure out how to talk to them. We had a very dramatic shift between what President Bush was able to do with Hispanic voters, where he won 44 percent of them, and what happened to Senator McCain. Senator McCain did not deserve what he got. He was one of those that valiantly fought, fought for immigration reform, but there were voices within our party, frankly, which if they continue with that kind of rhetoric, anti-Hispanic rhetoric, that so much of it was heard, we’re going to be relegated to minority status. (bold added).
The nativists and anti’s can no longer get away with their language of hate and their scapegoating of Latinos. Politically speaking, it is suicide. And realistically speaking: it is aiding and abetting in the murder of innocent immigrants. Stop the hate.
Today at MigraMatters, Duke has a really thoughtful post about the incoming administration (whoever that may be) and how they could deal with immigration sensibly and comprehensively. It is a must-read.
Come January 20, 2009 a new administration will take office in perhaps the most precarious times the nation has faced since the 1930’s. Fighting two seemingly endless wars and with an economy on the verge of collapse, it is not an enviable position for any leader.
While both candidates have avoided the immigration debate like the plague during the campaign, it has moved down the list of important issues for voters, replaced by more pressing issues like healthcare or the economy. But in order to address these more pressing concerns in any meaningful way, the new government will need to tackle immigration once and for all.
However, immigration is involved in all of these issues. By silencing themselves on immigrantion, both Obama and McCain are refusing to address large portions of the issues American’s are concerned about.
Too often immigration is seen as a negative separate influence on the nation’s economy. Yet, a new report shows that immigration has a much more positive impact on the future health and stability of the nation’s economy when it’s looked at via Main Street USA.
A recent report released by the University of Nebraska at Omaha backs up the connection between immigration and the economy. A connection that, according to the report, would help to bolster are struggling economy.
…the researchers found that the state’s immigrants pay in about 7 percent more than what they use in government support. Also, if immigrants were removed from the state’s labor force in key industries like meat processing or construction, the state’s production would lose $13.5 billion.
In these times, where every dollar counts in helping faltering state and city economies, it seems foolhardy for either candidate not to address the immigration issue..
And yet, there was only a brief mention of immigration in the debate, when McCain accused Obama of misrepresenting his position on immigration in the much-covered Spanish Language Ad wars.
In the hours after the debate, pundits and talking heads leaped into action, reporting as though they were covering a sporting event and recalling, play-by-play, who performed well and who did not.
This is hardly helpful for the American public who deserves REAL answers from the potential future president(s). They certianly missed their opportunity.
So far, one topic has been glaringly absent from the Presidential debates: immigration. As I’ve posted various times in the past few weeks, both Barack Obama and John McCain have yet to answer a debate question on the topic (even while they court the much sought-after Latino vote).
Obama and McCain haven’t been afraid to talk about who is to blame for the demise of 2007’s immigration bill. In dueling Spanish-language ads, McCain has unfairly accused Obama of trying to block the major immigration bill that he supported. Obama retaliated with an equally questionable ad tying McCain to immigration hardliners like Rush Limbaugh who McCain has generally stood up to. Yet amidst all of this finger-pointing, neither candidate has adequately addressed the bottom line: what would they do, as president, to fix our broken immigration system?
Well, now is the time. Organizations and individuals across the country are calling on both candidates to address immigration during the upcoming debate on Wednesday night.
The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) held a press conference in their Manhattan office today at noon to discuss what they hope to hear from the candidates and describe unprecedented efforts to get out the immigrant vote. Tomorrow, immigrant advocates and supporters are expected to rally outside the debate at Hofstra University asking the candidates to stop “ignoring the 12 million elephants in the room.” Senators McCain and Obama should take this opportunity to break the silence.
Let’s hope that both candidates heed the overwhelming desire for this issue to be addressed.
As I posted yesterday, there was absolutely no mention of Immigration during Tuesday’s Presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.
Plenty of other people have taken note, and are writing about it.
Latina Lista, lamenting the absence of a question on immigration during the debate, suggests what that question should be:
It’s particularly disappointing that immigration wasn’t addressed in light of another massive immigration raid that took place only 263 miles away from the debate site.
Had the candidates had time to answer a question on immigration, it should have been one question that would not have dealt with the regular issues that pit them against other members of their party like amnesty, border security or the border fence.
It would have been the one question that neither candidate has addressed but because of the situation in the country, it’s imperative that they do:
Do you support a moratorium on immigration raids?
Immigration Impact, the Immigration Policy Center’s blog, also had some words on the candidates silence regarding immigration and is ready with their own questions for Obama and McCain.
After two presidential debates and one vice-presidential showdown, the American public is still waiting to hear what John McCain and Barack Obama have to say about the elephant in the room: immigration.
The debate is an opportunity for both candidates to set their records straight once and for all, including:
Who really was responsible for the fall of 2007’s immigration bill?
What should be done about the 12 million immigrants here in the U.S. without papers?
How will Obama and McCain address the problem of unscrupulous employers who hire workers, take advantage of them, and undercut their competitors?
Opponents to a path to citizenship say anything that provides legal status to those here illegally is amnesty: how do Obama and McCain define amnesty? Do they support amnesty? If not, what do they support?
How can Obama and McCain promise they will actually fix our immigration system rather than pass reforms that perpetuate the problem and lead to another 12 million coming in illegally in the future?
What questions would you ask the candidates? What would you like to hear them address about their positions on immigration policy?
They did, however have something to say about healthcare, the economy, the bailout, the War in Iraq and our relations with Pakistan.
Many people criticized the “town hall” format of the debate. Personally, I found it distracting and I think that rather than giving the debate a more informal and personal feel, it caused confusion, odd camera angles and a loss of substantive answers from the candidates.
In the polls:
CBS undecided focus group goes 39%–27% in favor of Obama. However, in terms of minds changed, it was a split. 15% now support Obama, and 14% support McCain. So, the net effect is probably zilch. At this point, that is good for Obama.
CNN post-debate poll showed Obama winning 54%-30%. Also, Obama gains a net 8% in favorability, while McCain unchanged. So, it looks pretty good for Obama. We are three for three as a ticket so far.
But again, there no mainstream media is discussing the gaping hole that was left by no mention of immigration. So far all I can find on it is this post at VivirLatino, which covered the last presidential debate and its lacked of what they call “the I word”.
Did any of you send questions in for the debate? If so, were any of them about immigration?
I would be interested to see how many questions they received on the topic that were then ignored.
Community Organizers have taken quite a beating during recent campaign remarks by the GOP. A few years ago, the injustice of this would have been lost on me – I had no idea what community organizing was. But now, I am priveleged to work with an incredible group of community organizers who are among the brightest, most hard-working and inspiring people I have ever met.
by Willie Gould MySouthEnd.com Contributor Thursday Sep 25, 2008
On Sept. 4, I left work at Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA), a non-profit community organization in the South End, and headed home. I turned on CNN and, along with 37.2 million of my fellow Americans, tuned into the Republican National Convention. Rudy Giuliani was discussing Barack Obama’s qualifications for the job of President: “He worked as a community organizer” deadpanned Giuliani, who then broke into a fit of laughter, and added a derisive “What?”
I can’t say I was shocked or surprised. These are the sorts of negative attacks that I’ve grown accustomed to over the last eight years. But during vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s speech there was more of the same: “I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer”, she explained, “except that you have actual responsibilities.” The delegates roared with approval.
I’m a youth worker. What this means is that I’m a part-time teacher, mentor, counselor, friend, and, yes, community organizer all rolled into one. I work long hours and do not have the money to show for it. I’m not complaining. I love my job, my teens, and the community I work in. And I wasn’t offended by Giuliani’s or Palin’s comments. I laughed it off and didn’t take it personally. But watching the delegation’s response to these backhanded remarks solidified what I already knew: the Republican Party just doesn’t get it.
What does a community do, where do they turn, when they feel that their government has left them behind? When trickle down economics doesn’t quite trickle down that far? In Barack Obama’s acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination he summed up the economic policies of the previous administration: “Out of work? Tough luck, you are on your own. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Even if you don’t have boots, you are on your own.”
I work at Villa Victoria (Victory Village), which just celebrated its 40th birthday. In the late 1960s the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) labeled it Parcel 19 and placed it on the short list for urban renewal. This meant attempting to evict the predominately Puerto Rican residents, bulldozing historic brownstones, and building luxury condos and shopping centers in their place. Around that time a group of community organizers banded together, stood up against the BRA, and established a plan to preserve their neighborhood. The result is a 435-unit affordable housing community complete with the multi-service agency that I work for.
Our organization addresses the needs of the community and fills in the gaps where the local, state, and national services end. We have a pre-school, after-school programming for 5-18 year olds, ESL, GED, and community college classes, employment opportunities, arts shows, concerts, and countless other social services. I am constantly amazed and inspired by my co-workers who put in long hours and make great sacrifices because they truly believe in the work that they do. They understand what it means to serve their community and their country.
Barack Obama also heard this call to service. You know the story: he graduated from Columbia University and spent three years as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. After finishing Harvard Law School he directed Project Vote, an organization focused on registering new African-American voters in Illinois. As president of the Harvard Law Review and a promising graduate, Obama could have written his own ticket, but he chose to return to his adopted community of Chicago and dedicate his life to public service.
For John McCain and the Republican Party, this service apparently means nothing.
They equate national service with serving in the military or the government; anything else is just a joke. In a time when natural disasters are pummeling our shores, our public education system is failing to educate our youth, and my teens are scared to walk down the street because of gang violence, we need our young people to stay in their communities and lend a hand. We can’t afford to have hundreds of thousands of our young men and women scattered around the globe in military uniforms. We need a surge of teachers, a surge of doctors, and a surge of green engineers. While McCain promises that we will stay in Iraq for 10 or even 100 years in order to finish the job, Obama has vowed to expand AmeriCorps positions from 75,000 to 250,000, provide $4,000 college scholarships for students who commit to 100 hours of community service, and mandate that 25 percent of all federal work study money be spent on service learning. This would put our most promising young people back into our communities where we need them the most.
John McCain has also served his country. He was asked to fight in Vietnam and he went above and beyond the call of duty. Since then he has worked tirelessly in the House and Senate for nearly three decades. I do not wish to question his exceptional and honorable career. I respect John McCain’s service to America. It’s just a shame that he doesn’t respect mine.
Willie Gould is a Somerville resident and the Youth Arts Program Coordinator at IBA.
The need for labor and the simultaneous crackdown on undocumented immigrants is creating a type of catch-22 in Texas.
But this tug and pull of the labor force highlights an uneasy dilemma: The region needs the muscle of undocumented immigrants, but simultaneously is a cog in a broader crackdown of illegal immigrants at worksites.
I think that the example of Texas is a microcosm of what is occuring across the nation. We have always been a country that is built by the contributions of immigrants, but we have lost sight of that in recent years. The contributions immigrants bring to our country, our economy and our culture have been lost amidst the nativist rhetoric that blames immigrants for everything from Global Warming to the recent Economic Collapse. No, really.
“There’s just no mechanism in place right now to provide those important laborers work authorization,” said Leigh Ganchan, a Houston immigration attorney with Haynes and Boone. “It’s a shame that employers can’t tap into a whole segment of society that’s willing and capable to provide those services. Our nation is more vulnerable than it would like to admit, I think. Vulnerable, meaning we need people to help us rebuild our infrastructure after major disasters like this.”
During this pivotal election time, we should be demanding that both candidates address the issue of immigration in a head-on and direct manner. Instead, the campaigns have remained frustratingly hesitant to discuss the topic (though at least Obama responded to the Sanctuary’s survey – for more on this click here). The only true attention they have given Comprehensive Immigration Reform was recent attack ads that show politics at their worst.
It is time for a real discussion about all of the issues facing the nation – not the least of which is immigration reform. Just ask the folks in Texas.
Many of you will remember the survey that the Sanctuary sent to both presidential candidates over the summer. It asked real questions about their stance on immigration issues. For a refresher check out posts here and here. Last week, the Sanctuary finally released Obama’s answers to the survey (though they were quickly amended by the campaign). McCain has yet to respond, which thwarts the whole reason for the survey – a truthful comparison of the candidates on the issue. From the Sanctuary:
While our original intent was to present a meaningful side-by-side comparison of the policies and positions of all presidential candidates in order to better inform voters, Senator McCain’s unwillingness to answer our questions, or to go on the record with his positions on the specific details covered in the questionnaire, has made this impossible. Senator McCain’s reluctance is all the more troubling in light of the fact that his previously published positions, available on his website, appear to directly contradict those in the official platform coming out of the Republican National Convention earlier this month. This has left many of us who are concerned about immigration reform at a loss to know exactly where the Senator actually stands on vital issues.
It is worth noting that upon the Sanctuary’s release of Obama’s responses, they were immediately contacted by the campaign asking that they wait for “new, fresher responses” from the Democratic candidate.
Check out the Sanctuary’s post for the responses (and amendments) from the Obama camp.
I would love to be able to report on McCain’s responses too, but, we are still waiting…
Last Friday, a New York Times editorial sharply criticized both candidates for their recent Spanish-language ads that hurled untrue accusations from all sides.
Mr. McCain lied first, in a Spanish-language ad that accused Mr. Obama of helping to kill immigration reform last year, by voting for amendments that supposedly doomed a bipartisan bill. The ad lamented the result: “No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side?”
That is a jaw-dropping distortion. The bill wasn’t killed by any amendments. It was killed by a firestorm of talk-radio rage and a Republican-led filibuster. The very bill that Mr. McCain now mourns is the one he sidled away from as his own party weakened and killed it. It’s the one he says he would now vote against.
For Mr. McCain to suggest that Mr. Obama opposes the “path to citizenship” and “guest worker program” compounds his dishonesty. Mr. Obama supports the three pillars of comprehensive reform — tougher enforcement, expanded legal immigration and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.
Mr. McCain was an architect of just such a comprehensive bill. But he is also leading a party whose members rabidly oppose the path to citizenship. So, in deference to them, Mr. McCain now emphasizes border security as the utmost priority. Except when he’s pandering in Spanish.
Mr. Obama’s retaliatory ad, also in Spanish, was just as fraudulent. It slimed Mr. McCain as a friend and full-bore ally of restrictionists like Rush Limbaugh, even though Mr. Limbaugh has long attacked Mr. McCain’s immigration moderation. It quotes Mr. Limbaugh as calling all Mexicans stupid and ordering them to “shut your mouth or get out,” which he never did.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration keeps raiding factories and farms, terrorizing immigrant families while exposing horrific accounts of workplace abuses. Children toil in slaughterhouses; detainees languish in federal lockups, dying without decent medical care. Day laborers are harassed and robbed of wages. An ineffective border fence is behind schedule and millions over budget. Local enforcers drag citizens and legal residents into their nets, to the cheers of the Minutemen.
Both candidates once espoused smart, thoughtful positions for fixing the problem. But Mr. McCain is shuffling in step with his restrictionist party. Mr. Obama gave immigration one brief mention at the Democratic convention, in a litany of big-trouble issues, like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage, on which he seemed to say that the best Americans could hope for are small compromises and to agree to disagree.
It is time that we demanded a real debate on all of the issues, not just immigration. America is tired of the lies and tired of the smear ads. We want to hear about the issues.
As Frank Sherry from America’s Voice said:
[We] offer this challenge to both candidates: Be honest with us. Use the time remaining in your campaigns and the upcoming Presidential debates to tell us your plan for immigration reform. How will you design it, how will you pass it into law, and how will you implement it, so that we can once again be both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws?
can't wait to see pics from this! RT @nakasec: oh did we mention we're protesting at rep joe wilson's ofc today? w @casademaryland right now 1 hour ago
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This weekend, the Senate voted to open up debate on health care reform. Now is a critical time and with the possibility of compromises ahead, we want to make sure that immigrant inclusion is a part of any reform bill that goes to vote. After the infamous Joe Wilson outburst last month, immigration has yet again [...]
On Wednesday night, 60,000 people joined what was an incredible call to action on overhauling our nation’s broken immigration laws. Today, we’re releasing a new video that features Congressman Luis Gutierrez unveiling his principles for reform in October, and which calls on all of us to help build the movement for real immigration reform: We all know [...] […]
This week’s post from our guest blogger Robert Gittelson: I, along with some 60,000 like minded comprehensive immigration reform advocates, attended one of the town hall parties last night. At the event that I was involved in, at CARECEN in Los Angeles, we numbered over 60 apt listeners, (and one of the featured speakers, Angelica [...]
On Monday, I wrote about the anti-amnesty “tea parties” that barely made an impact this past weekend. The showing from the ALL CAPS wielding blog trolls at ALIPAC was dismal. … with many events attracting 10-15 people and none attracting crowds of any significance. This shows what smart political operatives in both parties have known for [ […]
This past Saturday, ALIPAC, an extremist anti-immigrant organization based in my home state of North Carolina, hosted their ‘anti-amnesty tea parties’ across the country. (Its worth noting that I will use quote marks every time I call these ‘tea parties’. The anti-amnesty crowd does not legitimately represent the teabaggers.) From the […]
