Sunday, June 17, 2012

DAME SU VOTO

Obama’s cheap-shot political ploy to solidify the Latino vote

Unless you are dwelling under a rock, you know that President Obama bypassed Congress by announcing a significant immigration policy change Friday. Congress has been at an impasse over immigration reform throughout Obama’s term in office with no solution in sight. From now on the Department of Homeland Security will no longer deport immigrants who are here illegally through no fault of their own.

Under the new policy, undocumented immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. Those who qualify for the program can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed.

In making his announcement, Obama said, "This is not amnesty, this is not immunity, this is not a path to citizenship, it's not a permanent fix, this is a temporary stop gap measure."

And DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said:

__"Our nation's immigration laws must be enforced in a firm and sensible manner. But they are not designed to be blindly enforced without consideration given to the individual circumstances of each case. Nor are they designed to remove productive young people to countries where they may not have lived or even speak the language. Discretion, which is used in so many other areas, is especially justified here."

Immigration experts estimate that the new policy will apply to at least one million illegals.

Personally, I have no quarrel with this policy change. I think it makes good sense! But I do have a quarrel with the timing. Why now and not one year ago? Why not two years ago? During the 2008 campaign, Obama promised to make immigration reform a “top priority” during his first year as president. So, with Congress at an impasse on immigration reform, why didn’t he do this in his first year as promised? It’s obvious to me – there were no votes at stake during that time.

Just nine months ago Obama told Latino journalists that existing laws prevented him from issuing any executive order on immigration reform, the same excuse he used several times earlier during his first term.

Have the existing laws been changed? No! Then why did the president suddenly change his mind? Because the presidential election is only five months away and Obama is in full campaign mode. If you read between the lines of his announcement, Obama was telling the Latino voters:

__Dama su voto! Give me your vote!

Anyone with half-a-brain should be able to see that Obama’s announcement is nothing more than a cheap-shot political ploy aimed at solidifying the Latino vote in favor of the Democrats. In 2008, Obama received 67 percent of the Latino vote. By his policy shift, Obama hopes not only to keep that solid majority, but to enlarge it.

1 comment:

bob walsh said...

This is such an incredibly obvious political move I can't possibly imagine how anybody could think it is anything else. If Barry had wanted to deal honestly and effectively with the immigration issue he has had 3 1/2 years to do it, rather than making a big splash move in 3 1/2 weeks, less than five months before the election. All he is trying to do is manufacture 500,000 new Democrats.