LatinaLista — President Obama made his reelection bid official today. From e-mails sent out, it’s obvious he wants to relive the glory campaign of 2008 by recreating the grassroots momentum that pushed him to victory.
While that strategy may work in some circles, it’s bound to fall on deaf ears within a good portion of the Latino community who were instrumental in organizing votes for him in 2008.
Why?
While Obama and his campaign know that Latinos turned out for him in record numbers, he and his campaign have either forgotten or turned a blind eye to the fact that a good many of his Latino and Latina volunteers were young people who were either undocumented, friends of undocumented or putting in time believing that Obama would be different when it came to prioritizing the DREAM Act and immigration reform.
Regardless of how much support is expressed by the White House and Congress for both measures, the fact remains that neither issue has passed. And to make matters worse, enforcement has reached new heights, anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation has expanded across the country and local communities are being forced to participate in a program that makes local police the extended limbs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as the Secure Communities program.
While more DREAM students are either threatened with deportation or have been deported and more families are being separated, the White House claims its hands are tied.
So, it is not surprising that the call from Obama’s campaign to start organizing is being met with indifference this time around by a lot of young Latinos.
People can only be strung along for so long and then something has to be shown as a sign of good faith that things will be different a second term around.
