Editorial:
Last week the President announced his new policy that would allow young adults and students the opportunity to stay in the United States. This news was greeted with great excitement. It is a partial victory for the DREAM Act.
The Presidential proclamation will allow people under 30, with at least a GED or enrolled in school, to be eligible for deferred deportation action for a period of two years, subject to renewal. They will also be eligible to apply for work authorization. As it was pointed out by the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, “Our nation’s immigration laws must be enforced in a firm and sensible manner … 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.”
For this, President Obama must be commended for finally do something in regards to the immigration issue. In particular, our president should be praised for saving the best and brightest of our community from living a life in the shadows of our society.
While we applaud Obama there is an obvious game of politics being played here. Presidential elections are only four months away and Obama needs to secure the Hispanic vote.
We would like to take issue with some aspects of the new immigration policy, however. First there is the issue with the “policy” in general. It is not a permanent solution only a temporary fix for two years. After that, the students will have to re-apply for an extension, and there is no path to citizenship. It does nothing for those young people that are in the same boat, who never did get their GED. Hispanic students are at the bottom of the education ladder and lead the nation in drop outs. And everybody over 30 is out of luck. So we have a temporary fix that boosts Obama’s numbers with the Latino vote and reduces Mitt Romney’s chances at the coveted Latino pie. Political pundits say that if a Republican presidential candidate cannot get at least 35% of the Hispanic vote, they will not win.
On Thursday Romney spoke before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), where he did his best to appear sympathic to the issue of immigration. He could not, however, venture far from his right wing support which demands a hard line on immigration.
As the old saying goes, Romney finds himself between a rock and a hard place and Obama’s “DREAM Act light” announcement further drives that wedge between Romney and Hispanic voters.
Unfortunately for Obama we have seen something similar to this new policy four years ago when he promised immigration reform. But then, during his presidency, we saw a rise in deportations. 1.1 million immigrants were deported during the first three years of Obama’s term. So Mr Obama, you will have to forgive us if we remain a little less than enthusiastic about this new immigration ploy, as we await more bold and permanent answers to the immigration issue.