No Politico, Not All Undoc Immigrants Are Latino

By Roque Planas, Huffington Post Latino Voices

 Politico made waves with an article published Monday that attempts to parse out the political efforts of a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform.

The article argues that “pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now” would create a “bonanza” for Democrats, as someconservatives fear.

The overall thrust of the article makes sense. Latinos tend to vote more liberal than the general electorate, so if more Latinos become citizens, the trend will likely favor Democrats.

The article’s math, however, doesn’t hold water, as plenty of people have pointed out.

There’s a lot of problems with the assumptions the article makes, but among the largest is that Politico assumes all undocumented immigrants are Latino.

They aren’t. Of the estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants residing in the United States as of 2011, some 81 percent were born in Latin America, according to PewHispanicCenter. So the actual figure of undocumented Hispanics is probably closer to 9 million.

Politico tried to shield itself from criticism by hedging:

The Politico analysis is intended to reflect the GOP’s broader dilemma on immigration issues; it is not meant to be specifically predictive. There is no way of knowing how many of the estimated 11 million undocumented workers would ultimately succeed in gaining citizenship, nor any certainty of what their turnout percentages would be once they gain voting rights.

The disclaimer failed to convince. (For detailed analyses of Politico’s faulty analysis, check out Jordan Fabian’s piece at ABC News/Univision or Nate Cohn’s article in the New Republic.)

The error is all the more important because Politico…

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This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.