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An issue that won't go away
Immigrant groups weigh their options
By JUAN ESPARZA LOERA / Vida En El Valle
(Published Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 09:00AM)
The immigration issue may not play a big role in the upcoming presidential election, but that doesn't mean voters will not get a slew of commercials and campaign material about the divisive issue from candidates in races ranging from Congress to local offices.
That is the assessment by immigrant rights leaders who believe the presumptive presidential candidates -- Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Barack Obama, D-Illinois -- have taken similar approaches to the issue by supporting comprehensive immigration reform. Their worry, however, is with lower-tier candidates who may use the issue to generate votes.
"As we work our way down the ballot in November, immigration will increase in intensity," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, during a conference call last Tuesday. "The difference between the (presidential) candidates may not be extreme, but in congressional and state races, local races, we're seeing candidates use immigration as an issue."
Clarissa Martínez de Castro is senior director of state and local advocacy policy for the National Council of La Raza. She said the public is concerned about immigration, but don't see it at the same level as gasoline prices, the economy and the war.
"Does that mean they don't care about it?," she asked. "Nothing could be farther from the truth. (Candidates) need to engage in the issue because the public wants a solution."
Martínez de Castro said the immigration issue could make a difference in swing states like Arizona, Colorado, New México and Nevada where the Latino vote is significant.
"We may add Florida to that column," she said.
Noorani and Martínez de Castro believe organizations like theirs need to take the initiative to make sure the immigration issue does not become dominated by ultra conservative groups whose solution is deportation.
"The work ahead of us in the next six months is incredibly important," said Noorani.
That work, he said, includes voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts in the immigrant community. The forum, said Noorani, will monitor both presidential candidates to make sure they don't say one thing about immigration to "one audience and another thing to another audience."
"It is monitoring accountability," said Noorani.
Martínez de Castro said last year's failure for comprehensive immigration reform has led cities, counties and states to "intervene in this issue with what we think is pretty chaotic results."
"Because of the nature of these laws -- and, in many ways the attempt to overreach -- there have been successful lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of these proposals," said Martínez de Castro.
Those local laws, she said, have been fanned by political pundits and nativist groups who want to develop a "conventional wisdom of immigration issues" that focuses on punative measures.
Those efforts have failed, she said, but they have helped energize the Latino vote. That could pressure Congress to address the immigration issue, she said.
"Raids, definitely, and its aftermath and consequences are actually serving as an additional push for these immigrants and ethnic communities to come out and vote," said Martínez de Castro. "There are Latino citizens who get picked up and harassed because of the issue. It is helping educate and galvanize many voters who potentially couldn't see themselves affected like this before."
