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IS DREAM ACT ON PRESIDENT’S AGENDA?

February 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

THE HISPANIC BLOG

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College student Jasmine Oliver, of Warwick, R.I., top left, and Javier Gonzalez, of Pawtucket, R.I., top right, display a banner and shout their support for allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates while attending public colleges in the state, during a Board of Governors of Higher Education meeting on the campus of the Community College of Rhode Island, in Warwick, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

President Barack Obama said Congress should take one step toward overhauling the country’s immigration system by passing the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for some children of undocumented migrants.

In an interview with Oakland, California-based Radio Bilingue that was rebroadcast Wednesday via Internet, Obama said his administration prioritizes the deportation of undocumented immigrants with criminal records and tries to avoid separating families.

The president said his administration is doing all it can to make the immigration system more humane, but that the most important priority is to fix the country’s immigration laws.

He noted that during his State of the Union address last month he urged lawmakers to approve the DREAM Act, which passed the House of Representatives in December 2010 but has stalled in the Senate.

That bill would offer permanent residence to undocumented high school graduates who enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces or attend college.

Obama said that legislation should be a priority this year, although he lamented that hard-line Republicans were refusing to work in a bipartisan fashion on the issue.

According to the president, it is important that Congress listen to the Hispanic community and other communities affected by the country’s broken immigration system.

An estimated 5,000 U.S. children whose parents have been deported or detained because of their immigration status have been placed in state foster care nationwide, according to an investigation made public late last year by the Applied Research Center.

Obama has acknowledged that his administration’s enforcement policies have caused the break-up of families in some instances and pledged to ensure that children are not separated from their parents without due process.

The president, who will seek re-election in November, supports a “comprehensive” immigration overhaul that would strengthen border security while simultaneously putting many of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States on a path to citizenship.

By contrast, most of the candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination, who on Wednesday squared off in a debate in Arizona, oppose such a plan because they say it would provide amnesty for lawbreakers.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/23/obama-pushes-congress-to-make-dream-act-priority-in-2012/#ixzz1nJp4jlpR

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WHICH LEADING HISPANICS WILL ADVISE PRESIDENT OBAMA ON LATINO VOTE?

February 22, 2012 by 1 Comment

THE HISPANIC BLOG BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

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Prominent Hispanics from across the United States, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Texas Rep. Charles A. González and actress Eva Longoria, are among a group of 35 individuals who will advise Barack Obama in his bid for re-election in November, the president’s campaign team said Wednesday in a statement.

This group of national “co-chairs” of Obama’s 2012 campaign will “serve as ambassadors for the president, advise the campaign on key issues, and help engage and mobilize voters in all 50 states,” the statement said.

They include leading Latinos such as the mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro; the executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Maria Elena Durazo; Texas Congressman Charles A. González; the U.S. transportation secretary from 1993-1997 and U.S. energy secretary from 1997-1998, Federico Peña; and actress Eva Longoria.

Other co-chairs of the president’s re-election campaign will include Bill Daley, who served as Obama’s chief of staff from January 2011 to January 2012; Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel; and author and president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Caroline Kennedy.

“The president’s national co-chairs will be tremendous assets on the ground as we build the biggest grassroots campaign in history,” Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said in the statement.

“They each share the president’s vision for a future where every American can have a fair shot at success, where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded.”

The co-chairs “are proud of the president’s record and leadership in rebuilding the economy after the worst economic crisis in generations,” the campaign statement said.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/22/hispanic-leaders-to-advise-obama-on-re-election-bid/

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ARE LATINOS A “SLEEPING GIANT?”

February 22, 2012 by 1 Comment

THE HISPANIC BLOG NY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

Mainstream media and politicians have sold Latinos short for decades. (Flickr: Beverly & Pack)

I can remember back to 1980 when President Carter was running for reelection against a list of Republican candidates, including Ronald Reagan. Ruben Bonilla, the then-National President of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was being encouraged to endorse the president’s campaign. He backed Carter, but Reagan went on to win easily.

This common, apparently benign scenario, has played out for decades but it’s representative of the underlying problem when it comes to how media and politicians treat Latinos.
From 1980 to the mid-1990s, Latino voters were always referred to as the “sleeping giant.” Our population growth has constantly risen at a rapid pace, thus many in politics and the media have recognized the potential political strength of the Latino community and politicians desired the endorsements of top Latino officials.

But at the same time, the disturbing reality is that we have not yet realized that potential at the ballot box. We continue to have a very young population and we have experienced a great deal of obstacles to voting because of state and local barriers. Instead of addressing these issues head on, politicians and the media have just rolled with the punches. Presidential candidates have made lightweight political overtures to Latinos in nearly every election. And the media only gives scant coverage to Latino issues.

How did this happen?

Every four years, beginning in 1980, I would read the traditional “sleeping giant” article in virtually every major newspaper in the country. It was telling that in non-election years, most media in those days seldom focused much attention on Latino politics or policy concerns. Despite our population growth and political aspirations, one would seldom see a Latino or Latina on any of the established political talk shows, such as Meet the Press. Heck, we were overjoyed if we were simply able to make the nightly news on ABC, CBS, or NBC.

Then, the Spanish International Network (SIN) opened its Washington, D.C. office and we were as close to media nirvana we would ever get. SIN would cover the work of Latinos in D.C. and throughout the nation. SIN would become Univision and through those years, the every-four-year syndrome on the “sleeping giant” changed. We began to see more articles and attention, but at the same time there was little depth and dimension to this coverage. We still weren’t at the tables of the evening news and we didn’t have many Latino reporters, but at least the frequency of attention was growing.

Over the last fifteen years, Univision has become a major player in U.S. media and has helped draw attention to Latino and Latino issues in this country. However, it appears one of the downsides of this development has been that the English-language media has abdicated coverage of Latinos to Latino-centric outlets.

Mainstream media spouts their hypocritical interest in the “Latino vote” and community interests. But they have become quite adept at having non-Latinos speak for Latinos on issues that “you have to be there” in order to provide an honest and informed perspective. But what’s the problem? They mention us, they eat our food, some of the their best friends are Latino, and after all they know our concerns better than we do.

I asked a distinguished Latino journalist recently why the media was completely ignoring Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich campaigns and their outreach to the Latino community since Florida. Despite the caucuses in Nevada and Colorado, and the Arizona primary coming up next week, there was no discussion of how Latinos were being courted or ignored by the campaigns.

The journalist responded that the media’s assumption is that, in a GOP primary, the lion’s share of Latino voters will come out of Florida, where Cuban-Americans live, and not elsewhere. The media thinks Latino Republicans and their minds doesn’t leap to Colorado, Arizona, or New Mexico — even though these states could play a decisive role in the primary and general elections.

With the largest number of Latinos in history expected to vote in 2012 and the constant questions about the importance of the Latino vote during the past 19 Republican presidential candidate debates, one would have thought that, this time around, the interest would be more intense.

Read More: http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/18024024761/opinion-notion-of-latino-sleeping-giant-has-pitfalls

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WHY SHOULD AMERICA REFORM IMMIGRATION: PULITZER PRIZE WINNING JOURNALIST SHARES HIS STORY

February 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

THE HISPANIC BLOG BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

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Austen Hufford/Daily
Jose Antonio Vargas spoke at the Rackham Ampitheatre last night.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas spoke at the University about his life as an undocumented immigrant and his desire to promote discussion about immigration through Define American, the organization he founded.

Before an overflowing crowd at the Rackham Amphitheater last night, Vargas said he launched Define American to encourage conversation about immigration and tell the stories of immigrants in the United States through YouTube videos modeled after the It Gets Better campaign.

He added that many people associate illegal immigration with criminality, thus it was important to collect stories from as many people as possible.

“Undocumented immigrants are just like everybody else, our parents, like the parents of the country’s first immigrants, came to U.S. for a search of a better life like everyone in this room,” he said. “With or without proper documents, I’m a human too, and no human being is illegal.”

Kevin Mersol-Barg, founder of the student organization Coalition for Tuition Equality and the event’s organizer, said the speech was intended to provide perspective on the struggles undocumented students face.

The University restricts undocumented students who live in Michigan from paying in-state tuition, forcing them to pay the same rate as international students — three times the amount an in-state student pays.

Mersol-Barg said such policies were pushing away talented students, and he said he wants to make the University accessible to all students.

“It’s not just a minority student issue, but an issue for all of us,” he said.

Vargas said he discovered he was an undocumented resident when he went to get his driver’s permit when he turned 16 and was told his green card was fake.

“I was thinking to myself, the woman must be lying, because I’m not Mexican,” Vargas said. “I was a victim of my own stereotype — I thought only Mexicans could be illegal immigrants.”

His grandfather then informed him of his undocumented status, embroiling Vargas in a series of elaborate lies that allowed him to obtain a driver’s license and social security card.

“It’s a dangerous thing to be sixteen in America and realize that the flag you’ve been pledging allegiance to didn’t belong to you,” he said.

He added that his high school English teacher led him to journalism, where he found security in working and “contributing to society.”

In 2008, Vargas was a part of a Pulitzer Prize winning team of journalists, which won the award for Breaking News Reporting for its coverage of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings. He also wrote an in-depth profile of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in September 2010. Vargas, who was initially hired by The Washington Post in 2004, quickly rose to the highest echelons of the journalism world.

Last summer, Vargas finally told his story in a highly-publicized article in The New York Times Magazine to demonstrate undocumented immigrants’ diverse backgrounds and professions.

Read More: http://www.michigandaily.com/news/vargas-speaks-about-life-undocumented-immigrant

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Filed Under: LATINO POLITICS

HOW DOES REPUBLICAN SENATOR MARCO RUBIO FEEL ABOUT FELLOW REPUBLICANS BEING ANTI-IMMIGRANT AND WILL HE BE THE NEXT VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE?

February 21, 2012 by 1 Comment

THE HISPANIC BLOG BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

Will Marco Rubio be the Next Vice Presidential Candidate?

He has said –over and over and over again– that he does not intend to be the GOP vice presidential nominee. But, evidently, the disclaimer matters little to the public. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida once again has emerged in a national poll as the favorite to occupy the slot that is a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Beating out household names such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Rubio was the top choice in a new poll that asked roughly 800 registered Republican and Independent voters across the country: “No matter who is the Republican nominee for president, if you could pick the vice presidential nominee, who would it be?”

After Rubio, respondents picked GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania, then Christie, then Palin.

“Any time you place ahead of Sarah Palin, call yourself a winner,” said Peter Woolley, director of the poll, which was conducted from Feb. 6-12 by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind. “Her name recognition and presence are formidable.”

The results, released Monday, come shortly after a straw poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference recently showed Rubio as an overwhelming favorite for the vice presidential slot. In the CPAC poll, Rubio was followed by Christie, and then Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

In the presidential straw poll, Mitt Romney was the top choice, followed by Santorum, former House Speaker Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

Rubio has not yet endorsed any of the GOP presidential candidates; his endorsement would be a big get for any of the contenders.

His thoughts on the words and actions of the contenders have carried weight. He’s a Tea Party favorite, a GOP star and, many say, the future of the Republican Party.

Rubio, 40, is one of Florida’s most popular leaders, particularly among Republicans. A Quinnipiac University poll released Jan. 10 found that nearly 80 percent of Republicans and nearly half of independents approved of the job he is doing. Only a quarter of Democrats liked his job performance.

“It’s pretty easy to see why Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is on every GOP presidential candidate’s vice presidential shot list,” said an article in U.S. News & World Report. “The freshman, Cuban-American senator laid out a passionate, succinct, and unifying conservative agenda more effectively than any of those actually vying for the presidency have thus far, during remarks he made at the Conservative Political Action Conference.”

At CPAC, Rubio asked: “What is the conservative movement? It’s pretty straightforward. We believe that the way prosperity is created is when people have the freedom and the opportunity to pursue their dreams.”

Rubio has not hesitated to call out fellow Republicans when he feels they have erred.

He has taken exception to what he considers potentially self-destructive talk by Republicans about illegal immigration. He has urged the party to focus its rhetoric on legal immigration.

He assailed Gingrich for airing an ad in the Cuban-American senator’s home state calling Romney, considered the frontrunner in the GOP primary, “anti-immigrant.”

“This kind of language is more than just unfortunate,” Rubio was quoted as saying in The Miami Herald. “It’s inaccurate, inflammatory, and doesn’t belong in this campaign.”

No sooner did the news of Rubio’s discomfiture hit the Web than the Gingrich campaign say that it planned to pull the radio ad out of “respect for the senator’s wishes.”

“We respect Senator Rubio tremendously and will remove the ad from the rotation,” said Gingrich’s Florida campaign leader, Jose Mallea, according to The Miami Herald.

Echoing the sentiment other presidential contenders in the GOP primary have expressed, Gingrich said during a debate before the Florida primary that Rubio was worthy of consideration for vice president.

Asked the next day to elaborate on his statement, Gingrich said in an interview with Fox News Latino: “I think that anybody who has any sense as a presidential candidate is going to recognize that Marco Rubio has to be on the short list.”

“He is so talented, he is so competent, his background is so strong, he’s such a good speaker. . .he has an ability to reach out and help with the very rapidly growing Latino community across the whole country. . .Anyone who wouldn’t put him there I think is just not serious about how you win the presidency.”

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/20/marco-rubio-is-top-choice-for-vp-among-gop-voters-in-new-poll/#ixzz1mxABrlY2

Thank you for reading my post. Please make sure to SUBSCRIBE to my blog on the upper right hand side and make sure to leave me a comment and give me some feedback. Is there something you want me to write about that I may have not covered? Is there another topic you’d love for me to explore and write about? Whatever it is don’t be shy SUBSCRIBE – COMMENT – LIKE ME AND FOLLOW ME! If you have any questions, concerns or simply would like to get a quote on my Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media and/or Events services, please feel free to contact me at thehispanicblog@gmail.com. God Bless and have a fabulous day!

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powered by Influential Access – “Transforming the Ordinary to EXTRAordinary!” – CEO – Jessica Marie Gutierrez – Creator of The Hispanic Blog #thehispanicblog

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