August 15, 2012, I was sitting crouched at a desk in my father’s law office, helping fill out his clients’ forms to be filed immediately that night. It was the day that the Obama administration started receiving applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that offers qualifying undocumented immigrants under the age of 31 a work permit and temporary relief from deportation. The consensus in the immigration law community was that it would be best to file as early as possible, since hundreds of thousands were expected to apply. It seemed like it was going to be a late night at the office. And late nights always meant that something big was happening in immigration.
But the news reports of September told a drastically different story. Most of the media coverage on the program was suddenly about the underwhelming number of applications rather than thousands flooding the legal clinics to apply, and about a sense of fear rather than a feeling of excitement. Immigration in general has also not been a main issue this election season, raising questions about whether the Latino population will remain loyal to the Democratic Party despite Obama’s more liberal policies on immigration.
However, the importance of the Latino vote in this election, coupled with the personal significance that immigration issues carry for the Latino population, has tied Romney’s hands on the immigration issue; DACA has driven him into a corner from which he can neither lash out against the program nor support it.
What is it, anyway?
DACA, officially announced by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on June 15, 2012, grants temporary reprieve from deportation and work permits to undocumented immigrants under the age of 31 who entered the United States as children and currently attend or have graduated from a U.S. educational institution. The program streamlines the process of “prosecutorial discretion” by letting the administration weed out undocumented immigrants with criminal records or those who pose a threat to national security.
After this announcement, the Obama administration drew fire from both Washington insiders and outsiders, who argued the president was abusing his executive powers to expand the general concept of “deferred action” beyond the small and select population it was originally meant to serve. On August 23, Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who takes credit for the draconian Arizona immigration law SB1070, filed a lawsuit against Napolitano, saying that the program orders states “to break federal law.” Nevertheless, the new program was a major victory for long-time DREAM Act supporters in both the Senate and the House, who have introduced and reintroduced the bill time and time again, only to have it stalled by filibusters or voted down.
Those who criticized the new deferred action program were especially enraged in light of the upcoming election. Many described the program as a political calculation aimed at solidifying Latino votes to the Democratic Party in the presidential race. But the relatively low intensity of the spotlight on immigration issues this year raises questions about whether the executive order will even make an impact in the coming election, and whether or not that was Obama’s original intention behind it.
The Economy vs. Immigration
Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has long held a precise goal in terms of targeting Latino voters: they have calculated that they need at least 38% of the Latino votes to defeat Obama in the upcoming election. Looking at his immigrant-friendly deferred action program, Obama, at least on the surface, seems to have a leg-up, considering that immigration has long been championed as the number one issue for the Latino community.
But the economy could change that traditional dynamic. On September 18, Fox News released a poll that found 48 percent of likely Latino voters choosing the economy as the most important issue in deciding their vote, while only 6 percent picked immigration as their top priority. Deborah Anker, Harvard Law School’s Clinical Professor of Law and director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic, expressed to the HPR her doubts about the credibility of the poll, commenting on Fox News’ usual bias to the right side of the political spectrum: “Romney says, ‘You should worry about the economy, and I’m going to fix the economy.’ Then Fox News comes out with a poll that says economy is the most important issue for the Latino community.”
Meanwhile, Allan Wernick, a professor at Baruch College who directs the City University of New York’s Citizenship Now! Program and also writes regularly about deferred action for the New York Daily News, explained to the HPR that the Fox poll is most likely correct: “I think if you ask Latinos what the most important issue to them is, they’re going to say the things that everyone else says, the economy. It’s always like that. If you look at any immigrant community in NYC, the number one issue’s never been immigration. It’s always schools, public safety, and the economy.”
If the poll is right, then it may imply that deferred action will have a minimal effect on the Latino votes in the 2012 election. But the issue of immigration will not die out so easily. Experts in the field explained to the HPR that immigration carries a much deeper significance for the Latino population.
What Immigration Means to Latinos
Leslie Berestein Rojas, the Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter for southern California’s public radio 89.3 KPCC, explained to the HPR that there is a long and personal history to the Latino population’s relationship with the issue of immigration: “The way that immigration matters to Latinos is as a personal issue. In California in the 1980s, voters were personally attacked by Proposition 187 and didn’t see it as a rule-of-law issue. That’s how immigration matters to Latinos.”
Wernick agreed with Berestein Rojas: “If you ask people how you feel when politicians stigmatize and denigrate immigrants, they take it personally. Any kind of racism and religious bigotry may not be the main issue that you’re concerned about politically, but when you face it, you’re pretty unhappy about it.”
Indeed, DACA has begun to affect people in the personal ways that Berestein Rojas and Wernick mentioned. Steven Choi, the Executive Director of the Minkwon Center in New York City, a community organization that has been providing legal services for immigrants eligible for deferred action, described the experience as “coming out of the shadows” and being able to enjoy a “whole host of benefits even beyond just deferred action.” It is likely that these sentiments will still be at least a part of what decides the vote for many Latinos.
Romney and DACA
Romney has so far tried his best to evade giving definite answers to questions on what he will do about the program if he should be elected into office this November. Berestein Rojas told the HPR, “He’s said that [the program] might be a temporary thing, but people are asking, ‘what’s the permanent solution?’” Although outwardly, the economy is the issue on everyone’s minds this election season, the fact that Romney has remained uncomfortably hazy on the issue of immigration will matter personally for the Latino population at their moment of decision.
Whether or not the Obama administration’s main intention behind instituting the program was election-oriented, the deferred action program will only end up benefiting the Democratic Party. In a way, the program has tied both of Romney’s hands on the topic of immigration; he’s been enveloped into a situation in which he can neither fervently criticize nor reject the claims that he will do away with the program as soon as he comes into office in order to appease both the Latino population and his primary group of supporters. “Let’s be honest,” Choi explained to the HPR, “the federal government has never asked a lot of people to seek a service and taken it away. There would be a humongous uproar if that was the case.”
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