Here's why the dems don't do anything about illegal immigration.
Democrats urge Latinos to mobilize to win in November election
Oct 08 3:47 PM US/Eastern
Democrats are hoping Hispanic voters will help them win control of Congress in midterm elections next month, and are promising help for immigrants in return.
Turnout is historically low for this swelling segment of the US electorate, but the community showed its political potential with massive demonstrations on immigration reform earlier this year -- and the Republican-controlled Congress has delivered little joy on their top issue.
"The key is getting Hispanic voters out to vote," Democratic Party president Howard Dean said ahead of November 7 elections in which all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and a third of 100 Senate seats are up for grabs.
"If we do that, I think we all see a Democratic Congress, and then I think you'll see a comprehensive immigration reform," Dean said recently.
Other Democratic leaders agree with the strategy, since Congress, which adjourned Friday to allow members to campaign, wrapped up its work by approving of a 700 mile (1,100 kilometer) wall on the US-Mexico border to keep out unwanted immigrants, a policy many Hispanics find offensive. Hispanics are the largest minority group of Americans, and most of them -- more than 60 percent -- are of Mexican origin or descent.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid urged Hispanic voters to get active in politics.
"The Hispanics are sitting on the bench and watching how others make passes and make touchdowns," Reid complained.
Democrats are also trying to regain lost ground. Hispanics have traditionally voted Democrat, but in 2004, President George W. Bush won between 40 and 45 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Numbering some 42.7 million people, Hispanic US citizens account for almost half of US population growth. But the number of Hispanic voters increased by just ten percent between the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
This November, some 17.2 million Hispanics are eligible to vote, about 8.6 percent of the total electorate, and a million more than were eligible in 2004, a Pew Hispanic Center study showed this week.
In the past, however, Hispanic turnout has been low. Two year ago, only 9.3 million Latinos registered to vote, just 58 percent of those eligible. By contrast, 75 percent of eligible non-Hispanic whites, and 69 percent of eligible African Americans, registered to vote.
This year, however, the equation many be different.
In giant demonstrations held all over the country in the first part of the year, Latinos demonstrated their potential clout, in a political awakening some compared to the African American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
For the first time in US history the Hispanic community joined nationwide to demand broad legalization of undocumented migrants and to protest legislation approved in the House of Representatives that would criminalize them.
The majority of the country's nearly 12 million undocumented migrants are of Latin American origin.
According to a poll by the conservative Latino Coalition, 84 percent of Hispanics favor what they call comprehensive immigration reform, blocked thus far by Republicans in Congress.
Democrats and many Hispanic groups are hoping that turnout on November 7 will reflect the numbers seen in the demonstrations earlier this year, and Hispanic discontent with the anti-immigrant tone set by some conservative Republicans this election year.
"Latinos stepped up this spring in support of immigrants and comprehensive immigration reform. Now we need them to step up the to the ballot box and make a difference in November," pleaded Manuel Mirabal, president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition.
"Members have expressed growing concern over the politicization of the immigration issue and the demonization of Latinos in the 2006 campaign," said Ron Blackburn-Moreno, president of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda.
"We are saying 'Ya Basta' (enough already) to elected officials who engage in this kind of bashing, and will work to educate Latino voters about theses issues," Blackburn-Moreno said. |
