Marco Rubio could join Mitt Romney in GOP presidential ticket

Senator Marco Rubio could be eventurally invited by Mitt Romney to run as vicepresident in the Republican bid for the November 2012 general elections.

Three top Cuban-American political leaders endorsed today leading GOP candidate Mitt Romney. This reinforces the odds for Senator Marco Rubio to be included in Romney's presidential ticket.

Mitt Romney with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart during a campaign appearance in Miami in November 2011. Photo Reuters

The Miami Herald announces today:

Mitt Romney will pick up the ultimate Cuban-American endorsement trifecta Tuesday in South Florida: The support of U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, and his brother, former Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart. 

The endorsements of the Miami Cuban-American leaders is a leading indicator that Romney is making a big push in Florida for one of its most crucial voting blocs in the state's Republican primary, scheduled for Jan. 31.

The possibility of Marco Rubio running as vice-president is there:

A poll posted in November shows that Rubio would help a GOP candidate in Florida if he is included in a presidential bid. Last week, an editorial published by The Washington Post suggests that "Marco Rubio has what Mitt Romney needs in a vice president".

Last year, during the controversy about Marco Rubio parents' immigration story, it was Mitt Romney who came out in strong defense of the charismatic Cuban American leader who is known only by 54% of Latinos, according to a poll published by Pew Research Center.

Update: Just a few minutes ago, the Republican National Committee has appointed Cuban-Mexican-American strategist Bettina Inclan, as the new GOP Latino Outreach Director.

The Romney campaign has launched this Spanish-language TV ad, where Rep. Ileana Ros-Lentinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers appear. This was released today by Mitt Romney's website under the title "Nosotros" (Spanish for us, as we.). In my opinion, the title for this ad should be "Nosotros los gusanos".

This campaign ad is bad. Not only it ignores the issue of immigration but also it reveals that for the Republican party, conservative Latinos are still mostly Miami Cubans who are very much disconnected from the large Mexican American communities in the nation, who by the way usually have voted mostly for Democratic candidates in recent Presidential elections.

However, Mitt Romney himself has Mexican-American roots. Watch the video at end of this post.


Latinos and immigration

Mitt Romney is facing strong criticism from Latino leaders, activists and advocate groups after he declared openly that he would veto the DREAM Act, a legislative initiative that would benefit more than 2 million undocumented students, most of whom are of Latin American heritage.

This past weekend while campaigning in New Hampshire, Romney ignored publicly a group of activists for the DREAM Act who tried to dialogue with him. Univision has posted this interview with undocumented activist Erika Andiola and candidate Rick Santorum who also declared his opposition to the DREAM Act:

It's interesting that both Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney share immigrant roots - well, as most U.S. citizens anyways. A video recently launched by Univision, exposed Romney as a hypocrite for opposing Immigration Reform and the DREAM Act.

Mitt Romney's father is a Mexican immigrant, and his relatives were refugee immigrants welcomed in Mexico after suffering political persecution in the United States.

And also today, the endorsement of the conservative Miami Cubans [known as gusanos by Cubans in Cuba and leftists in Latin America] was joined by Kris Kobach, author of the racist Arizona law SB-1070 which is extremely unpopular among Latino voters.

We'll see how this goes. So far Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are the only Republican candidates courting the Latino vote.

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Shit Spanish Girls Say? Not really

This video is funny...

But also this video portrays Latina women [and transgender Latinas in this case] in ways that not everyone might agree with. This video promotes racial and cultural stereotypes may be funny for some, but they might not be good for Latino women.

That's an open question.

Also, these are not Spanish girls. They are U.S. women of Caribbean heritage, raised in urban areas. More likely East coast cities like Boston, New York or Philadelphia.

Judging by the flag displayed in the video and by some terms used like "coño", by the accents of the actors and the colloquial expressions like "tu 'tas loca?"... or "Wepaaaaa!" these girls are Puerto Ricans from New York [Nuyoricans] or Dominicans, not Spanish.

To make it easier for you to understand, I put this together. I know these photos also reinforce stereotypes but you will get the point.

Also, not all [Latino women] say this type of "shit". Most Mexicans, Central and South American women don't speak this way, usually.

This is because people from the southern regions of the Americas have very different ethnicities, idiosyncrasies, accents and vocabularies. This applies also for Latinas raised in the U.S. or those who migrated here as adults.

The video is good, I like it. The performances are entertaining, especially of Juan Ortiz who [I assume] is the thick, healthy looking Puerto Rican social-media savvy transgender.

This video reminded me of when I used to live in NYC and also of the 2002 film "Raising Victor Vargas" which is about the lives of a group of Caribbean kids growing in New York's Lower East side.

I feel like visiting New York soon again.

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The Obama reelection campaign and immigration

Last Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new rule to help undocumented immigrants who have relatives who are U.S. citizens, to regularize their immigration status in a shorter period of time, while staying in the country.

Indigenous migrants participate at a naturalization ceremony at the U.S. Department of Interior on September 23, 2011 in Washington, DC. About 50 immigrants from 29 countries became new U.S. citizens. Photo Getty Images

The new rule will allow the children and/or spouses of U.S. citizens to return to the U.S. sooner -or not to leave the country at all while they fix their status. This is what U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Alejandro Mayorkas posted:

Currently, children and spouses of U.S. citizens who have accrued a certain period of unlawful presence in the U.S., and have to leave the country in order to become a legal permanent resident of the U.S., are barred from returning to their families for as long as 3 or 10 years. They can receive a waiver to allow them to return to their families before that period by showing that their U.S. citizen family member would face extreme hardship as a result of the separation. [...] 

To address this problem, the USCIS proposal would allow eligible immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to apply for and receive "provisional waivers" of unlawful presence before they leave the United States for consular processing of their immigrant visa applications, significantly reducing the time U.S. citizens are separated from their spouses, or children.

This will benefit hundreds of thousands of immigrants -out of over 12 million undocumented- but it seems more a politically motivated move, ahead of the 2012 presidential elections with the Obama campaign trying to attract the Latino vote, as CBS News reports:

The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. [...] Immigrants who do not have criminal records and who have only violated immigration laws can win a waiver if they can prove that their absence would cause an "extreme hardship" for their citizen spouse or parent. The government received about 23,000 hardship applications in 2011 and more than 70 percent were approved, the official said. [...] 

Immigration has become a difficult issue for Mr. Obama ahead of the November election. As a presidential candidate, he pledged to change what many consider to be a broken immigration system.

Instead, Barack Obama has incarcerated and deported over 1.2 million workers and their relatives since he took office in 2008, with over 400,000 workers deported only in 2011.

The official website of Barack Obama's reelection campaign posted a pretentious announcement "A Humane Immigration Policy Proposal":

This rule change would allow U.S. citizens to remain with their families and is consistent with the President's commitment to sensible reform to fix our broken immigration system. He has streamlined naturalization for military service members, fought for the DREAM Act, and directed the Department of Homeland Security to focus on removing those who have committed crimes over those who pose little threat to our communities. Now, he's offering American families the chance to remain together as they pursue legal status. [...]

The President is fighting for a legal immigration system that meets our country's diverse needs because he knows that we all prosper when we recognize that we are all in it together. He believes that, as a nation of immigrants, we should stand united without dividing people.

In the meantime, the obsolete and broken U.S. immigration laws keeps proving to be destructive to people's lives but profitable for corporations. This week, Jakadrien Turner a 15 y.o. U.S. citizen was brought back to the country, after being mistakenly "deported" in 2010 to Colombia.

Jakadrien Turner, 15, arrives at DFW Airport in Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday Jan. 6, 2012, two years after being mistakenly deported to Colombia by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Photo AP

Many more cases of abuses against immigrants are occurring across the U.S. and in the home countries where workers are being deported. This week, a construction worker who has sent back to Mexico after a work injury paralyzed him from the neck down died in a hospital bed.

A report by Los Angeles Times describes well what is at stake:

Obama won two-thirds of the Latino vote in the 2008 presidential race, according to exit polls, and he needs a similar margin in November to win reelection. Campaign strategists have identified several paths to capturing the 270 electoral votes he needs: All require a strong showing among Latino voters to win swing states including Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Florida.

Latinos protest in front of a Los Angeles Federal Building during an "Occupy ICE" (Immigration Customs and Enforcement) march in Los Angeles on December 15, 2011. Photo Reuters

Latinos and Obama in 2012

In a December 2011 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 51% of Latinos disapprove Obama's job as a president, while 59% of Latino voters disapprove the way the Obama administration is handling deportations.

Among Latino registered voters 33% consider immigration as an extremely important issue. However, for the 2012 elections, Barack Obama has a potential support between 68-69% versus Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. This poll doesn't include Ron Paul.

Other findings:

• One-quarter (24%) of Latinos say they know someone who has been deported or detained by the Obama administration in the past year.

• Nine-in-ten (91%) Latinos support the DREAM Act, a legislation that would permit "young adults who were brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children to become legal residents if they go to college or serve in the military for two years."

• More than half (56%) of Latino registered voters are yet unfamiliar with the candidates running for president in 2012.

• About the political views of Latino registered voters: 35% describe their views as conservative, 32% as moderate and 28% as liberal.

• About 54% of Latino registered voters say they have never heard of  Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

This report was commented by a local TV station of Harlingen,Texas next to the border with Mexico:

Notice that the Pew Research Center poll was conducted before the Iowa Republican primary election.

In a CBS News poll released yesterday, Mitt Romney has a 47% over 45% advantage over Barack Obama, while the current president gets 46% versus 45% of Ron Paul.

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Latinos protest Mitt Romney in response to his remarks on the DREAM Act

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney vowed to veto the federal DREAM Act bill if elected president, proving that he is not familiar with the bill itself while causing protests from Latino voters.

The DREAM Act is a bill that was rejected in 2010 by the Republican-led Senate, which would provide a path to citizenship to undocumented youth who grew up in the U.S. and graduated from U.S. high schools, only after attending college or serving in the U.S. military.

A group of Latino voters show their support for the DREAM Act during a rally in Rhode Island by September 2011. Photo AP

This is what Mitt Romney said in Iowa:

Latinos protest

Romney's misleading remarks will get him more votes among conservative Republicans -Romney won the Republican Iowa primary elections in a technical tie with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul- but they have also alienated many Latino voters. 

ABC News' blog The Note points out:

Latinos are the nation’s fastest growing voting group – with an estimated 12 million set to vote in the election – and, predictably, Democrats have pounced on Romney’s stance.

The Obama campaign this week dubbed Romney the most extreme GOP candidate on the immigration issue, and leading Latino Democrats said the former Massachusetts governor’s immigration approach will hurt his standing among [Latinos].

A group of DREAM Act advocates and prospect beneficiaries or "DREAMers" have signed an open letter in response to Romney, exposing his hypocrisy and his always changing positions on this bill and on immigration:

Open Letter to Governor Mitt Romney from DREAMers 

Governor Mitt Romney, 

You recently stated that if elected president of the United States, you would veto the federal DREAM Act and would not support any legislation that grants in-state tuition for undocumented students.

At this point, we are wondering whether you know the facts about the DREAM Act as your statement appears highly inconsistent considering your political record. Your political history indicates that you once supported several immigration reforms, some of which included the DREAM Act. 

· In 2005, you supported an immigration reform plan that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) proposed and called it a “reasonable proposal”. During an interview with the Boston Globe in November 2005, you showed your support for the bill and said it was not amnesty. The Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Reform Act of 2005 (S. 1438), which failed to pass in Congress, would have required undocumented immigrants to pay a fee and would be allowed to apply for citizenship. 

· In 2007, you also supported the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform that provided a pathway to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally. During an interview with Meet the Press, you showed your support for the bill saying, “My own view is...those people who come here illegally and are in this country, the 12 million or so that are here illegally, should be able to sign up for permanent residency or citizenship.” 

· Two months later, in 2008, while running for president for the first time, you changed your stance on illegal immigration and campaigned against it. 

· Now, in your second attempt to run for president, you are again opposing creating a path to legalization for the undocumented immigrant population. During a Republican presidential debate in November you stated, “To say that we’re going to say to the people who have come here illegally that now you’re going to get to stay or some large number are going to get to stay and become permanent residents of the United States, that will only encourage more people to do the same thing. People respond to incentives and if you can become a permanent resident of the United States by coming here illegally, you’ll do so.”

Vitriolic, anti-immigrant rhetoric has been the platform for some of the current presidential Republican candidates. However, we want you to set the record straight on the DREAM Act. You have to recognize the positive impact this legislation would have on the U.S. and the lives of the 2.1 million undocumented young immigrants who would benefit from it.

A 2010 study by the UCLA North American Integration and Development Center estimates that the total earnings of DREAM Act beneficiaries over the course of their working lives would be between $1.4 trillion and $3.6 trillion. This translates into greater tax revenue and scores of new jobs. If you are serious about fixing the economy, the DREAM Act is the solution, not the problem.

On Saturday, you said you support creating a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants who serve in the military. In fact, this is included in the DREAM Act. You also said that if elected president, you would veto the federal DREAM Act and that you don’t support giving benefits to young immigrants, such as in-state tuition. Once again, the current DREAM Act does not give undocumented youth in-state tuition or preferences over U.S. citizens. Instead, it would allow each state to decide whether or not to grant undocumented students in-state tuition and would only allow them to apply for student loans and federal work-study programs.

Moreover, your recent stance on opposing a pathway to citizenship is contrary to the wishes of the American people. A recent Fox News national poll shows that 66 percent of Americans think there should be a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but only if individuals meet requirements such as paying back taxes and learning English. Indeed, your current stance will not give you the support from our immigrant community and Latino voters, who will be a determining factor in the 2012 presidential race. According to a Pew [...] Center poll released in December, 88 percent of Latino registered voters nationwide support the DREAM Act.

Over the past 10 years, since the DREAM Act was first introduced, Republicans and Democrats have used us to score cheap political points, and we will no longer stand for that. Even though we are still not allowed to drive, work, and use our college degrees, we have not given up. We will continue to mobilize our communities until we’re given the opportunity to give back to this country we love and call home.

Sincerely, 

Maryland DREAM Team
El Cambio in North Carolina
Arizona DREAMers
New Mexico DREAMers in Action
Connecticut Students for a DREAM
New York DREAMers
DREAM Team Los Angeles
Trail of Dreams
DREAM Big Vegas
United 4 The DREAM in Charlotte
California DREAM Network
Salt Lake DREAM Team
DREAM Act Oklahoma
Presente.org
Students Working for Equal Rights (SWER)
San Fernando DREAM Team (CA)
Youth Organizers United-Mississippi
CHISPAS in Gainesville
Dreamers Adrift (CA)
Youth Educating Society in Wisconsin
Nebraska DREAM Alliance
Minnesota DREAMers
Long Island Immigration Association (NY)
DREAM Military Service Aspirants
Arkansas Coalition for DREAM
Brooklyn College DREAM Team
Students United for Immigrant Equality (NC)
Texas DREAM Alliance
DRM Capitol Group

Here is a video with DREAM Act activist Gaby Pacheco being interviewed by Univision News:

Protests are expected during Mitt Romney's appearances in the following days.

Follow in Twitter as #DreamAct, #Dreamers and #ImmYouth