With deportation relief at stake, South’s Latinos could swing presidential race

*Fear in politics cuts both ways. The next president will nominate a ninth justice of the Supreme Court, determine the future of deferred action programs and deportation raids, and have the pressure of pushing immigration reform. Few issues in today’s politics generate the type of visceral reaction that immigration does. VL

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By Allie Yee, Facing South

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced a 4-4 tie in the case challenging President Obama’s 2014 immigration programs. The Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programs could have provided deportation relief to an estimated 1.2 million undocumented immigrants in the South.

The court’s deadlock left in place a lower court decision to halt the programs. It also raised the stakes in this year’s election, where a growing Southern Latino electorate galvanized by recent events could prove a decisive vote in closely contested races.

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The next president will play a key role in determining the future of the deferred action programs and other measures affecting undocumented immigrants. He or she will be responsible for nominating a ninth Supreme Court justice, who could be the decisive tie-breaking vote if the lawsuit returns to the Supreme Court. The next president will also have discretion over deportation relief programs . . . READ MORE 

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[Photo by Bread for the World/Flickr]

Suggested reading

In these vignettes set in the fictional county of Belken along the Texas-Mexico border in the early to mid-twentieth century, Rolando Hinojosa sketches a landscape of Mexican Texans and Anglo Texans living side by side, in good times and bad. “The world’s a drugstore: you’ll find a little bit of just about everything, and it’s usually on sale, too. Belken County, Texas is part of the world, and so, it’s no different; its people are packaged in cellophane and they, too, come in all sizes, shapes and in a choice of colors.” Some are brave; others are craven. Some are sharp, and some are dull.

Death calls on a regular basis in this first installment of Hinojosa’s acclaimed Klail City Death Trip Series. Jehú Malacara was seven when his mother died and nine when his father passed. He has family, but it’s Don Víctor Peláez who takes him in and makes him an integral part of the Peláez Tent Show. When la muerte comes for Don Víctor, Jehú is orphaned again. Others die in bar room brawls, in a clandestine amorous tryst at the local Holiday Inn and on the street.

Hinojosa paints his canvas with a montage of life’s events—births, weddings, friendships and love affairs—but his brushwork all too frequently highlights the discrimination experienced by Mexican Americans. They lose their land to Anglos, are paid with rotten fruit for their labor and are refused admission to certain cafes. But life goes on. Young men go to war and old men remember their wars, whether the Mexican Revolution, World War II or the Korean War.

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