Morning NewsTaco
Wednesday September 26, 2012
The Candidates Face Hispanic Voters (The New York Times): Mitt Romney and President Obama made direct appeals to Latino voters this week, appearing on successive days at a candidate forum sponsored by Univision, the national Spanish-language television network. The discussion ranged widely, touching on subjects as varied as the Middle East and student loans. But it focused heavily on immigration, a difficult subject providing rich opportunities for evasion and disappointment.
Voter ID Laws, Purges Threaten Latino Americans’ Voting Rights (U.S. News & World Report): Across the country, Latinos are feeling the blow of a new round of voting laws. Take Veronica Figoli. She came to the United States from Venezuela in 1999 as a student, and has since built a successful career in Colorado. She became a U.S. citizen in 2011 and registered to vote—but this past summer she received a letter saying that she needed to prove her citizenship in order to vote in November.
Robert De Posada Tells Latino Voters: Vote For Third Party Or Don’t Vote At All (Huffington Post): “Don’t vote for those who have betrayed you,” was a little long. It was a reference to immigration reform and the failure of members of both parties to advance it or even support it, as de Posada saw it. So the line became: “Don’t vote.”
Voter ID Laws, Purges May Deter 10 Million Latinos from Polls, Study Says (Fox News Latino): Latino voters are considered pivotal to the presidential election this year – if they turn out in large numbers in key battleground states. But a new report, from civil right activists, warns the combined effects of voter roll purges, demands for proof of citizenship and photo identification requirements in several states may hinder at least 10 million Hispanic citizens who seek to vote this fall.
Activists use education to overcome new voting laws (USA Today): At Jackson State University and Tougaloo College in Mississippi, students are setting up voter registration tables at football games and at Friday “hot spots” where classmates gather for music and fun.
Over 10 million Latinos may not vote. Why? (Catholic Online): New laws in several U.S. states that require photo identification prior to casting ballots could hinder at least 10 million Hispanics in 23 states, activists say. Statistics say that Latinos eligible to vote who might be blocked from voting this year is equal to the margin of victory in a number of states, according to civil rights group the Advancement Project.
Texas Seeks to Unblock Purge of Deceased From Voter Rolls (Bloomberg): Texas asked a state judge to dissolve a temporary court order blocking a purge of as many as 77,000 “possibly dead” people from voter rosters in one of several courtroom battles leading up to the Nov. 6 election.
Hispanics Certain To Back Obama, But In What Numbers? (NPR): There appears to be no question that President Obama will win the lion’s share of Hispanic support. But there are still very big questions to be answered about how many votes such support will translate into.
Characteristics of the 60 Largest Hispanic Metropolitan Areas, Pew Study (Kansas City InfoZine): Nearly half (45%) of the nation’s Hispanic population lives in just 10 metropolitan areas and more than three-in-four (76%) live in 60 of the largest Hispanic metropolitan areas, according to an analysis of 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.
Mexican-Origin Hispanics Are the Largest US Hispanic Group (Hispanic Business): Mexican-origin Hispanics make up 65 percent of the total Hispanic population in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) data released earlier this week.
Latino Groups Call Out Kennedy Center’s Neglect to Honor Latino Artists (Hispanically Speaking): In letters to Kennedy Center executives, Caroline Kennedy, President Obama, and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts (NHFA) and the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) are calling for major changes in the process by which Kennedy Center Honorees are selected and asking why there is a constant pattern of exclusion of Latinos. The groups’ demands follow the recent announcement of the 2012 Honorees, none of whom are Latino artists.
Lalo Alcaraz digs into the Kennedy Center Honors controversy (NBC Latino): Latinos can go “blank” themselves! This is what Kennedy Center director Michael Kaiser must have been thinking when he screamed, “Go F___ yourself!” into the telephone when confronted by Felix Sanchez, director of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts (NHFA) on the continuing Latino Lockout at the Kennedy Center honors. Since 1978, the Kennedy Center Honor has gone to only artists of Latino descent, Chita Rivera and Placido Domingo. I spoke to him about this disturbing incident, and the even more disturbing third of a century long diss against Latino artists in the United States.
Democrats kill House GOP immigrant visa plan after GOP eliminates diversity lottery (Houston Chronicle): A House bill to increase visas for immigrants with American degrees in the science, technology, engineering and medicine fields was shot down Thursday. At 257-158, it failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority to pass. A cry to bring the “best and the brightest” immigrants to the U.S. rang out from both sides of the House, but in the end screams of “yea” and “nay” drowned out chances of unison.
Alabama Immigration Law Causes Labor Shortage, Forces Importation Of Immigrants (Huffington Post): The Mexican government is reviewing a labor union’s complaint that Alabama’s crackdown on illegal immigrants violates an international trade agreement. An official with Mexico’s labor department confirmed the review in a letter released Thursday by the group that filed the complaint, the Service Employees International Union.
Report: Undocumented immigrants arrested and deported in 2011 hit record highs (Mimai Herald/Kansas City Star): Samuel Soto, an undocumented Honduran, is free after having been detained for more than three months in a detention center for immigrants in Broward County. Yet, Soto is still in danger of being deported. His freedom could be revoked any time and he could be placed on a plane to Honduras.
Romney Promises Not to ‘Round Up’ Undocumented Immigrants (ABC News): The candidate emphasized that he would expand legal immigration and said that he wouldn’t aggressively pursue undocumented immigrants living in the United States. “I am not going to be going around the country and rounding them up,” he said.
Texas Immigration Solution’ is a sensible policy, proponents say (Texas Tribune/KVUE): In June the Republican Party of Texas adopted what conservative proponents of immigration reform called a sensible policy on the issue, one that called for a national guest-worker program. That plank of the party’s platform was championed by the “Texas Immigration Solution,” a Houston-based nonprofit that also calls for a secure border and alternatives to mass deportation.
3 views on how US should combat illegal immigration (Christian Science Monitor): 1. Tighten up: Eliminate incentives for illegal immigration. Improve detection and removal.
Jose Antonio Vargas Challenges NYT and AP To Drop ‘Illegal Immigrant’ (ABC News/Univision): Starting today, a non-profit founded by Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist, activist, and undocumented immigrant, will begin monitoring the use of the phrase “illegal immigrant” in the media, with the goal of shifting the conversation around the issue.
Is ‘Illegal Immigrant’ the Right Description? (The New York Times): Jose Antonio Vargas is a man on a mission. The journalist turned immigration activist wants news organizations to stop using the term “illegal immigrants,” which he finds disparaging and inaccurate. He’s particularly focusing on The Times and The Associated Press to change their policies.
