By Felicia Persaud
News Americas, Tues. April 24, 2012: Here comes another slew of promises from President Obama on immigration reform – this time as the November election draws nearer and as the Latino votes continue to be up for grabs.
The President, who was at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, managed to move the spotlight away from his seemingly sex starved Secret Service agents, and directly on to the issue of immigration reform – an issue that for many months now has sat on his back burner.
Speaking directly to Latinos and Latin American viewers of Univision Obama aced the political game, blaming who else but the Republicans.
“We have most of the Democrats ready to vote in favor but do not have any Republican who is willing,” he also told Univision.
And he did not stop there, choosing to slam his opponent, Mitch Romney. “We now have a Republican candidate that has said that laws like Arizona are a model for the country. And these are laws that potentially allow a person to be stopped and be asked for their documents based on an assumption,” he said.
As he has done in the past, the President also affirmed his support for the DREAM Act, a bill allowing minors who entered the U.S. as undocumented to become residents of the country due to the fact that they have been raised as Americans.
“It’s a shame we cannot move forward,” Obama told Univision, in a direct appeal to the sentiments of immigrants frustrated with the lack of progress under his 3 and a half year watch, “Are a nation of laws, but also of immigrants.”
But then he made the biggest political chess move yet – not even Romney with Marco Rubio by his side could see this move.
The President shared his plan to push for immigration reform with Mexico and Central American countries as well as Latino voters in the United States and said that in his first year of his second term in 2013, he will push harder to make it happen – that is, should he be re-elected.
What an awesome power play! No one plays politics and these games as well as Obama. In his three-day trip to South America, he offered nothing much to that region but successes from that distance in attacking the GOP frontrunner’s stance on immigration reform and courting Latino voters who will be crucial in the upcoming election.
The Romney camp shot back through spokeswoman Andrea Saul, saying: “President Obama only talks about immigration reform when he’s seeking votes. Then-candidate Obama promised to tackle immigration reform in his first year. More than three years into his term, America is still waiting for his immigration plan.”
Saul may be right and many may share this sentiment but at the end of the day the stance of the GOP and Romney on immigration and the candidate’s failure to endorse an immigration proposal from potential running mate Marco Rubio that would allow young illegal immigrants to remain in the United States to work or study, does nothing to win the immigrant and Latino vote.
So at the end of the day, this voting bloc will have to swallow Obama’s string of promises again and hope that this time, should he be re-elected, he delivers!
The writer is founder of NewsAmericasNow, CaribPR Wire and Hard Beat Communications.
