Friday, June 15, 2012

Obama takes high ground on immigration...not deporting the good kids

Team Obama has definitely outmaneuvered Romney again on the immigration issue.  To play to his base, Mitt Romney, who's grandfather was born in Mexico, had to take an irrationally hard line on immigration.  This made his hopes of attracting Hispanic voters on social issues a bit harder.  Now there is yet another reason for Hispanics to favor Obama.  He won't deport young people (under age 30) who are the children of undocumented immigrants, so long as they have not been in legal trouble, and don't present any security risks.  After all the children often didn't have a choice about whether to come to the US, and now they have grown up in the US they may not speak Spanish or know much of the culture of the country from which their parents came.  It is a lot hard to vilify young people than it is to vilify all immigrants. 

This policy stands in sharp contrast to the extremist tactics adopted by Arizona and some other states with respect to immigration.  This also plays well with Obama's base and potentially defends him against attempts to make in-roads into the Hispanic voting block.  Not that republicans were too adept at that, as when the GOP created a "Latino" website where the kids pictured there were actually Asian.  With competence levels like they might as well write off that demographic (Latinos and Asians). 

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