Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Senator Barack Obama Promises to Address Immigration Reform During his First Year in Office

Feet in Two Worlds, reports that in an exclusive interview with the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, the Democratic candidate said he intends to “guarantee that [immigration reform] will not be used as a political football” and added that he was “committed” to putting together “a recipe” for immigration reform “starting in my first year” in the presidency.

This is great news for Latinos who have flocked to Democrats this year partly due to the harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric that has stemmed from certain members of the Republican Party. However, later in the interview Barack Obama also warns that with the current crisis facing the nation he will have to prioritize this issue before tackling illegal immigration.

Feet in Two Worlds also reported , that In his chat with reporter Maribel Hastings of L.A. newspaper La Opinión, Obama warned that if elected president he would have to “deal with some more urgent issues at the start of his term.” But Obama gave assurances that he is still committed to pushing forward immigration reform during his first year in office.

In this same interview Barack Obama also added that he filmed an ad in Spanish that was released earlier this week because he wants to assure Latino voters that he is interested in them and wanted to speak directly to them. He added that his “plans to develop infrastructure would create thousands of jobs”, thus helping to decrease the high unemployment rate that is currently at 8% for Latinos, that is 2 points higher than the national umemployement rate which stands at 6%. He also said that this would help the Hispanic community since it would involved “building new schools, in areas where there is overpopulation in schools”

Barack Obama made it very clear what choice Latinos face when he said, “if people are satisfied with the way things have been going they should choose John McCain who is offerring the same policies of George W Bush. ”

We hope that Barack Obama is able to maintain his commitment to the Latino community when it comes to immigration. It will be a daunting task given the many challenges that he will face if he is elected next Tuesday.Republicans seem to have lost the trust of the Latino community when it comes to this issue and the rhetoric of many Republicans seems to have pushed Latinos to the Democratic Party . On the other hand, Democrats should take note of this and make sure they do not take the Latino vote for granted. Barack Obama’s actions once he takes office will determine what happens in years to come.

Read the interview in Spanish: El Diario La  Prensa NY

Alternet.org

Comments

  1. I promise to scale Mt. Everest in the next 24 hours, unaided, while walking on my hands! See how easy promises are to make!! Now, keeping them is another matter. Obama has made many promises to many people, and has kept a precious few of them. He spoke to an excited crowd in New York on his campaign trail and promised them that he would revamp the eb5 visa program and make ti so more immigrants could more easily gain citizenship and create business and job and inject money into the US economy. He never followed through on that, and now it is too late, because the visa was renewed without any changes and cannot be amended. Lies, lies and more lies.

  2. Terry Noris says

    Ok..Promise officially broken. Obama has done nothing in his first year in office. Nothing. Well, he has talked a good game, he is good at that. But, all of the promises he made about reforming the eb5 visa program have gone completely by the wayside, and all other legislation seems to be in a permanent holding pattern. I know a lot of the legislators are afraid to pull the trigger on any sweeping legislation, but if they keep acting that way nothing will ever get done, and the situation will only continue to deteriorate.

Trackbacks

  1. […] Obama made big promises to Latinos on immigration and they listened. Now it’s Obama’s turn to stick to his word […]