President Barack Obama (Pic by The White House, via Flickr)

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney discussed the importance of the Latino vote over the weekend.

According to MSNBC’s First Read, speaking at a private fundraiser in Palm Beach over the weekend, ”Romney told his audience, ‘We have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party,’ warning that recent polling showing Hispanics breaking in huge percentages for President Obama ‘spells doom for us.’”

“Romney said the GOP must offer its own policies to woo Hispanics, including a ‘Republican DREAM Act,’ referring to the legislative proposal favored by Democrats that would offer illegal immigrants a limited path to citizenship, to give Hispanic voters a real choice between parties,” MSNBC reports, adding that “Romney nonetheless predicted that, by November, the economy would trump immigration as a driving issue for Hispanic voters.”

Latino Decisions wrote last week that “those who follow trends in Latino politics already know that Latinos consistently identify jobs and the economy, education and health care among their top issue concerns, tracking closely the priorities of other Americans,” but “immigration policy is deeply important to Latino voters, often because of personal or family ties to the immigration experience.”

“President Barack Obama attacked Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday over his stance on illegal immigrants and promised to pursue broad immigration reform if he wins another term,” Reuters reports.

According to Reuters, at the weekend Summit of the Americas “with Latin American leaders, Obama is hoping to court Hispanic voters back home whose support could be crucial to him in the November 6 election.”

“The Democratic president wants to fight an impression that he has neglected Latin America and failed to push hard enough on comprehensive immigration reform,” adds Reuters.

In a report issued in early April, Latino Decisions wrote, “We offer not a definitive projection about Latino influence in the 2012 but a way to project that influence and the key factors shaping that estimation.”

Latino Decision’s lists “three obvious but important premises”:

• Presidential elections are won state by state, so any projections in 2012 must be state specific;
• Latino influence in a state is most clearly identified when the Latino margin exceeds the final vote margin—this can occur regardless of the population size—in very close elections, even a small Latino electorate might make the difference, such as Indiana in 2008.
• The likelihood of Latino vote being determinative is dependent on the share of the eventual turnout comprised by Latino voters, the share made up of non-Latino ethnic blocks, and the two-party vote of each.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr)

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., stirred up the immigration debate last week when he announced a proposal to offer a “conservative-Republican alternative” to the DREAM Act, but it might not be enough for “attrition through enforcement” supporters, including Mitt Romney and his immigration advisor Kris Kobach.

According to Salon, in the race to get “Romney’s ear on immigration,” Rubio “starts out far behind” Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and “the most effective immigration restrictionist in American politics today.” Kobach authored Arizona and Alabama’s immigration enforcement laws.

“Kobach endorsed Romney in January and signed on to the campaign as an advisor. He is the foremost exponent of Romney’s avowed policy of ‘self-deportation’ for illegal immigrants,” Salon adds.

Romney first mentioned “self-deportation,” another name for “attrition through enforcement,” in Florida just days before the state’s GOP presidential primary.

Numbers USA, an organization that promotes and organizes around “attrition through enforcement,” writes that “the goal is to make it extremely difficult for unauthorized persons to live and work in the United States. There is no need for taxpayers to watch the government spend billions of their dollars to round up and deport illegal aliens; they will buy their own bus or plane tickets back home if they can no longer earn a living here.”

Kobach said in February during the Conservative Political Action Conference that attrition is a rational enforcement of the law, neither mass deportation nor amnesty. He said Arizona was the first state that required E-Verify, and that the move has led tens of thousands of undocumented workers to self-deport. He added that in Alabama “in the first month after the [immigration] law was enforced, unemployment dropped 0.5 percent in one month.”

Salon writes that “in an email, Kobach said he had not seen any details of Rubio’s Republican DREAM Act, ‘so I really can’t comment.’ Kobach also said he has not had any discussions about the proposal with the Romney campaign.”

What Kobach has done is file an amicus brief (.pdf) on behalf of the Secure States Initiative with the Supreme Court, explaining how “the three challenged provisions of [Arizona's] SB1070 are in full harmony with the federal immigration laws enacted by Congress.”

S.B. 1070, which will go before the Supreme Court on April 25 has served as a model for other states and brought to the forefront questions about how states can enforce existing federal immigration laws. Soon after its passage in April 2010 the Obama administration challenged the constitutionality of the measure. In July 2010 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th District upheld an injunction that blocked several provisions contained in the law, which prompted Arizona authorities to petition the Supreme Court.

According to the Immigration Reform Law Institute, where Kobach serves as an expert on constitutional law, the Secure States Initiative brief states “that the fundamental flaw in the Ninth Circuit decision is that it did not identify a single federal statute that unmistakably expresses federal intent to preempt state laws like SB 1070.”

Salon adds that “for immigration restrictionists, Rubio’s proposal amounts to another variation on ‘amnesty,’ says Ira Mehlman, spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“Republicans are looking back nostalgically to the time when they got 40 percent of the Latino vote. It’s not likely to happen,” Mehlman told Salon.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr)

GOP elected officials, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., are working on “a conservative-Republican alternative” to the DREAM Act, in an effort to reach out to Latino voters before the November presidential election.

The DREAM Act, which was first introduced in Congress 10 years ago, would grant those who entered the U.S. illegally before the age of 16 conditional permanent resident status for a period of six years, after which they would be eligible to become legal permanent residents if they obtain at least an associate-level college degree or serve in the military for two years.

Rubio tells the National Review in an interview published Friday that “Democrats and the Left are terrified of losing this issue,” and that they do not want to solve but rather use it as a political tool.

“If and when we are able to come up with a conservative-Republican alternative DREAM Act that deals with the issues of these kids without undermining our heritage as a nation of laws, when we do that, we are going to expose the political reality behind this,” Rubio says.

The Hill reported early this week that Rubio had no “specifics to announce yet,” about his alternative DREAM Act. “This stuff has to be done responsibly. We’re working toward that and hopefully very soon,” Rubio told the paper.

Rubio, who still does not support the DREAM Act, is drafting what earlier this month he called a a bipartisan solution that “does not reward or encourage illegal immigration by granting amnesty, but helps accommodate talented young people like Daniela [Pelaez], who find themselves undocumented through no fault of their own.”

Pelaez, a Miami high school valedictorian whose order of deportation set off a series of protests in South Florida and other parts of the U.S., met with Rubio. She has been granted another two years in the U.S. by immigration authorities while her case makes its way through immigration courts.

Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, who also met with Pelaez on the heels of the Miami protest, announced he would file the Studying Towards Adjusted Residency Status Act (the S.T.A.R.S. Act), which would allow undocumented immigrant youth who meet certain criteria to adjust their residency status.

“Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) are also working on a [DREAM Act alternative] bill, although its details are being kept secret, according to congressional sources. Senate sources expect it to be unveiled after GOP front-runner Mitt Romney has clinched the presidential nomination,” The Hill reported.

Rubio endorsed Romney this week, praising the GOP presidential candidate’s experience with the private sector and the free enterprise system and his conservative credentials.

Will these GOP congressional DREAM Act alternatives appeal to Romney and his immigration advisor, Kris Kobach?

Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, co-authored the hard-line Arizona and Alabama immigration enforcement laws. He said at the Conservative Political Action Conference panel earlier this year that the government should enforce programs like E-Verify, a federal workforce authorization program.

Kobach added that he never imagined the Department of Justice would sue states for their immigration laws, arguing that Congress has passed law after law to call on states to help the federal government with immigration policy, saying it is the Obama administration that does not want to allow states to have laws like the ones that exist in Arizona and Alabama, which implement “attrition through enforcement,” or what Romney calls “self-deportation.”

Kobach said attrition is a rational enforcement of the law, neither mass deportation nor amnesty, and the U.S. could be headed toward a national attrition through enforcement policy, because two GOP presidential candidates have said they support the strategy.

“If you want to create a job for an American citizen tomorrow, deport an illegal alien today,” Kobach argued.

Republicans, though, are aware that polls show that Romney trails Obama with Latino voters. According to The Hill, “Danny Diaz, a Republican strategist who worked on Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, said Republicans recognize they need to improve their image among Hispanic voters.”

“This isn’t just about the presidential primary. This about how the party has handled the issue over the course of numerous cycles including midterm cycles,” Diaz told the paper.

GOP problems with Latino voters extend to Rubio. According to a Latino Decisions/Univision January 2012 poll, about 60 percent of Latino voters across the U.S. had no opinion or had never heard of Florida’s junior senator, who is of Cuban descent.

While some GOP elected officials and strategists reach out to Latino voters, progressive organizations have launched campaigns against Rubio, whom the Republicans and tea party supporters consider a rising national star.

Florida progressives launched Wrong Way Rubio this week. The site is “dedicated to shining a spotlight on Sen. Rubio’s extremist positions, numerous ethical lapses.” At the national level, in January Presente Action launched “No Somos Rubios,” a campaign that states that “Rubio does not stand with Latinos”:

While Colorado Hispanics tend to vote Democratic, Hispanic Republicans are active and vocal in the state. Recently, the Colorado Asset Bill, SB 15–which would give undocumented students who graduate high school in Colorado the chance to attend a state college at a tuition rate just a little higher than the standard in-state rate–has created a rift between two groups of Latino Republicans.

When Martin Mendez, chairman of the newly formed Colorado Hispanic Republicans, blasted the bill on the Mike Rosen show last week, the response from the more established Somos Republicans was swift and pointed.

Rosen started the conversation by saying that people are led to believe that all Hispanics think alike, and favor open borders. Mendez said Hispanics think for themselves and that his group is pro-business and opposed to big government. “We disagree among ourselves,” he noted somewhat prophetically.

Listen to the Rosen/Mendez exchange here.

He said he is not for open borders, but believes that borders have to be controlled. He said bills like SB 15 are merely a first step toward open borders. “If this passes, what is next?” he asked.

Somos, which has publicly supported the Asset Bill and the national DREAM Act for years, issued a rebuttal within hours of Mendez’s appearance on Rosen.

“Somos Republicans is in full support of the Colorado Asset Bill and the federal DREAM Act. Somos Republicans — the largest Hispanic Republican grassroots organization that grew exponentially and nationally due to our strong pro immigrant stance is blasting the Colorado Hispanic Republican (CHR) Chairman today,” the group said in a press release.

Steven Rodriguez, national vice president of Somos Republicans, said his group had 900 Colorado members, and noted that a recent Fox poll found that nearly 90 percent of Hispanics in the U.S. support the DREAM Act.

“It is a known fact that most Latinos are in support of legal and pro-immigrant friendly policies,” Somos said in the statement.

“Somos Republicans was the only Republican grassroots organization in the nation that took a strong stance against Arizona’s harsh anti-immigrant SB 1070 law, and we will continue to oppose politicians who have supported harsh anti-immigrant laws and their policies moving forward,” the group said.

“I thought it was interesting that he would come out like that on such a heated issue,” Rodriguez, of Pueblo, said about Mendez.

Rodriguez said he and Somos prefer that the national DREAM Act becomes law, but while waiting for that, he said it is important that individual states take action.

Mendez said the Asset Bill would only benefit “about a hundred kids” in Colorado and that it is wrong for the many to pay in order for a few to benefit. He also objected to the bill on the grounds that there is no guarantee that students who take advantage of it will stay in Colorado. Like Rosen and most opponents of the bill, he said it would create an incentive for people to come into Colorado illegally.

Rodriguez said that the 13 states to pass similar bills so far have not seen any increase in illegal immigration.

Mendez also said the bill would create “false hope” on the part of undocumented students that they might one day achieve legal status in the United States. Both he and Rosen were very pointed in using the term “Illegal alien” instead of “undocumented” and Rosen went through a specific litany of reasons why he uses the term “illegal alien.”

For Mendez, at least part of the argument against SB 15 is personal. He said his father came to this country legally in 1956, from Mexico. “My father played by the rules. This is a slap in the face to all those who play by the rules. He stood in line and came in through the front door,” he said.

Mendez did not quickly return an email seeking further comment.

Rodriguez said the Asset Bill is a win-win situation, educating kids who are here anyway, at little or no real cost to taxpayers.

“We have to stand up and let it be known that Mendez does not speak for most Hispanic Republicans in Colorado. I don’t know if he speaks for the membership of his group, but he doesn’t speak for Hispanic Republicans generally. Not all Republicans are anti-immigrant.

“I’m afraid that the Republican Party is shooting itself in the foot on this issue. The arguments against educating the kids who grow up here are irrational,” Rodriguez said.

He said that about a quarter of Colorado voters are Hispanic and that a lot of them are young. “The Republican Party will be irrelevant soon unless we turn the tide.”

There are about 2.9 million registered voters in Colorado, about one million Republican, about 900,000 Democrat, and the rest unaffiliated. About 345,000 Hispanics are registered to vote in Colorado.

Rodriguez is a former Pueblo city councilman and ran for the Colorado legislature a few years ago. He said he is a Republican “because I agree with Republican values. I am pro-life. I support the opportunity to engage in business without too much government interference. I support religious freedom.

“This is the party of Lincoln and Reagan. They stood for those who could not stand for themselves. They knew that this is a nation of immigrants. Too many politicians, too many Republican leaders are concerned only about the next election. Statesmen–like Lincoln and Reagan–are concerned about the next generation,” Rodriguez said.

In its press release, Somos said its support for the DREAM Act and the Asset Bill are predicated on economics.

The DREAM Act legislation would encourage a younger group of people that would maintain our labor market needs, as well as help increase the small business ownership that immigrants often bring to our economy. Because higher education is a prerequisite, this group would support themselves in the labor market and avoid a growing dependence on government. We support measures that promote individual responsibility, not government entitlements.

Tax burdens will be shared with the people affected by the DREAM Act, and revenues would increase the tax base for state, federal, and local governments. According to the US Department of Commerce / Economics and Statistics Administration of the US Census Bureau, earnings increase with educational level ‒ and taxes increase when earnings increase. For instance, a single person who graduates with a Bachelor’s degree should make an average annual salary of $60,000 which is taxed at approximately $11,194 every year (2009 IRS Tax Rate Schedule).

Finally, they appeal to “compassionate conservatism.”

Children should not be punished for the “sins of their fathers.” Some people brought into the country illegally by their caretakers as young children have no idea they are not citizens until later on in life, because they were raised as Americans. Their loyalties are to the United States of America; they speak English well and have assimilated into American culture. Many hardly speak their parents’ language of origin and would not know how to function outside of the USA. This bill would prevent young people in this position who want to get higher education or serve the United States from being deported after receiving an American education.

“Obama didn’t deliver on big promises. In fact he’s been deporting millions. We have an opening to bring over Democratic Latinos this year. But I don’t think we’re going to do it. I think we’re gonna drop the ball,” Rodriguez told The Colorado Independent in a prior interview.

He said he cringes watching the Republican primary. He laughs with a mix of resignation and disbelief when describing how the race has made him question his own politics.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are just over a million Hispanics in Colorado, roughly 21 percent of the state’s population. They account, however, for only about 13 percent of registered voters, according to Pew. Obama defeated John McCain among Hispanics by a margin of about 61-38.

According to a spokesperson for the Colorado Democratic Party, there are about 345,000 Hispanic voters in the state, with about half registered as Democrats and about 15 percent registered as Republicans.

(Image of University of Colorado science building courtesy of University of Colorado)

DREAM Act supporters (Flickr/Korean Resource Center)

Evangelical leaders joined DREAM Act-eligible youth in Florida this week to launch Nuestro Futuro, a campaign to work with church networks and youth leaders to bring Latino evangelical youth to the polls in 2012.

Nuestro Futuro ”will partner with hundreds of churches in six key states (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New York and New Jersey) to register new voters and to educate the broader community on the top issues facing young Hispanic Evangelicals: poverty, immigration and education.”

“Latino and Latina evangelicals are close to 11 million people in the United States,” Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said during a phone conference on Wednesday. “In the next several months, we will register Latino and Latina evangelicals [so] young Latinos and Latinas are not condemned to poverty based on their ZIP code.”

The National Latino Evangelical Coalition, a movement that advocates for “the common good and justice in the public sphere,” will focus its initial campaigns on poverty, immigration reform and educational equity.

Rev. Peter Vivaldi, a Florida representative from the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said in a written statement:

We are honored to be launching Nuestro Futuro in central Florida and partnering with over 300 churches in Central Florida to begin a voter outreach campaign. As Latino Evangelicals, we are not here to elect a candidate we are here to advance a set of issues: poverty reduction, immigration reform and education equity. These issues are a top priority for us and we will not stop our work until they are squarely on the agendas of our political leaders.

“We are staunchly behind comprehensive and humane immigration reform,” Salguero said during the call, “and we will not desist until we get comprehensive immigration reform, so we have partnered with the Campaign for an American DREAM.”

Lucas DaSilva, who came to the U.S. at the age of 12 months and defines himself as a DREAMER, said in the conference call that the Campaign for an American DREAM ”is a walk across the country for the DREAM Act” starting in March.

The DREAM Act would grant people who entered the U.S. illegally before the age of 16 conditional permanent resident status for a period of six years, after which they would be eligible to become legal permanent residents if they obtain at least an associate-level college degree or serve in the military for two years.

DREAM Act supporters have been critical of the Obama administration’s immigration policy, record number of deportations and support for the federal immigration enforcement program Secure Communities.

Fox News reported Wednesday that Mitt Romney, the leading GOP presidential contender, “made waves among some Latino groups and immigration advocates when he said that if elected president, he would veto the Dream Act, a measure that passed in the House last year, but not in the Senate.”

South Florida Hispanic Republicans Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart and former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart endorsed Romney in late November.

DaSilva called the DREAM Act an opportunity for “evangelical youth because we are looking to promote unity, diversity and equality and a big part of the DREAM Act is that.”

“While Mitt Romney squeaked out a narrow win last night (in Iowa), what we are going to see is that the victory is going to prove to be very expensive for him, both in terms of the resources he poured into beating his incredibly weak counterparts in the Republican Party and (in terms of) the pandering positions that he has embraced to appeal to Tea Party Republicans,” Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio said at a press conference today.

“By now you have probably heard the national pundits making light of the fact that after six years of campaigning in Iowa, Mitt Romney earned six fewer votes than he earned in 2008 in the same caucus in Iowa. It is a fun statistic to talk about but it also reveals how weak Mitt Romney’s support is in his own party.”

Colorado Democrats today held a press conference to blast Mitt Romney's positions on immigration. Left to right, Rep. Dan Pabon, Rep. Crisanta Duran and State Chair Rick Palacio. (Kersgaard)

The real gifts to Obama, though, may come from a shifting demographic and an apparent GOP blindness to this shift.

Doug Massey, head of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton University, reported last year that migration from Mexico to the United States has reached its lowest level in decades and may even have crossed over into net zero territory.

From The New York Times:

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

The decline in illegal immigration, from a country responsible for roughly 6 of every 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, is stark. The Mexican census recently discovered four million more people in Mexico than had been projected, which officials attributed to a sharp decline in emigration.

American census figures analyzed by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also show that the illegal Mexican population in the United States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004. Although some advocates for more limited immigration argue that the Pew studies offer estimates that do not include short-term migrants, most experts agree that far fewer illegal immigrants have been arriving in recent years.

Add to this Mitt Romney’s immigrant-bashing rhetoric and you have a likely Republican presidential nominee who may find it difficult to compete strongly for the Latino vote in a general election against Obama.

“If Romney were the Republican nominee, his positions on immigration would be the most extreme of any nominee of our time and he continues to go further to the right and pander to the Tea Party and the Tancredo crowd, saying and standing for anything he thinks will get him elected,” Colorado Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, said this morning.

From The Hill:

National advocates for immigrant rights are hammering Mitt Romney this week for opposing legislation providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrant students.

The advocates maintain that Romney’s recent vow to veto the DREAM Act if he wins the White House will “disqualify” him in the eyes of Latino voters, an ever-growing constituency that both parties have sought to court.

“Millions of Latino voters see their own children and family histories in the aspirations and ambitions of the DREAM youth and don’t take kindly to those determined to slam the doors of opportunity in their faces,” Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant rights group, said Tuesday in a statement.

“If he becomes the Republican nominee, Romney will find it virtually impossible to reach the 40 percent threshold among Latino voters that Republican candidates need to win the White House,” Sharry said.

While campaigning in Iowa on Saturday, Romney didn’t mince his words when asked how he would approach the DREAM Act as president.

“The question is, if I were elected and Congress were to pass the DREAM Act, would I veto it, and the answer is yes,” Romney said. “For those that come here illegally, the idea of giving them in-state tuition credits or other special benefits, I find to be contrary to the idea of a nation of laws.”

…

“If I’m the president of the United States, I want to end illegal immigration so that we can protect legal immigration,” Romney added. “I like legal immigration.”

Sharry said the remarks, while intended to woo Iowa conservatives in the run-up to this week’s caucuses, will make it much tougher for Romney to win vital swing states with significant Hispanic populations, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.

“Romney’s comments about the DREAM Act will disqualify him among a large swath of Latino voters throughout the nation,” Sharry said.

It is Romney’s weekend pledge to veto The Dream Act if it passed Congress while he is president that has enraged Coloradans as well.

“This issue is about making sure that every child whether documented or not has access to the American dream because that is what this country is built on. We are built on the idea that if you work hard and you play by the rules you will be able to have access to that American dream,” Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, said at today’s press conference.

Palacio and Duran pointed out that candidates who take hard right immigration stances tend to lose elections in Colorado, pointing most recently to John McCain, Tom Tancredo and Ken Buck.

“In 2010 Ken Buck and Tom Tancredo ran on some of the most anti immigrant platforms in the country and Colorado voters rejected them both and for good reason,” said Palacio. “Now that Mitt Romney has joined in this divisive Republican tradition of attacking common sense reforms that Colorado communities need, his political fate faces the same peril other candidates have faced.”

Meanwhile The Council on Foreign Relations this week reported that immigration from Mexico and Latin America to the U.S. is down to historically low levels and is not likely ever to recover to anything close to the levels that created the anti-immigration backlash of the 1990s and early 2000s. CFR pointed to a number of factors for the shift, including a declining birthrate in Mexico, improving economies in Mexico and Brazil, a stagnant economy in the U.S., the difficulty of crossing the border and the high number of deportations.

There are many reasons behind these trends, some general, some country specific. Many point to the Obama administration’s rather tough immigration policy as one reason for the decline. A record-breaking 400,000 immigrants were deported last year, and immigration prosecutions increased almost eighty percent along the U.S-Mexico border in the last four years. For Mexico, others speculate that the rise of organized crime and violence along the border may deter some from contemplating the journey…

An important factor is the weak U.S. economy. With unemployment rates hovering at just over eight percent, there are fewer jobs for natives and migrants alike. This has occurred at a time when many of their home countries are growing steadily – at a decent 4 percent regional average clip, and much more in particular countries and economic strongholds. Better job opportunities in the region broadly — but particularly in Brazil — encouraged many to return home, and kept others from leaving at all.

Looking ahead, a U.S. economic recovery would recreate the pull north for Latin Americans seeking to improve their lot. If the Chinese economy stumbles this too could slow returns, or push more migrants north (especially from Brazil, which counts China as its largest trading partner). Meanwhile, flows from Central America are likely to continue as long as economic opportunities there remain scarce. The real question is Mexico. There, demographics have already shifted, with fewer Mexicans coming of age and entering the work force each year. As a result, the Mexican immigration boom of the 1990s and early 2000s is unlikely to be repeated ever again.

2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr)

Latino entrepreneurs, conservative policy groups and media outlets continue to closely track what GOP 2012 presidential candidates are saying about issues important to Hispanic voters.

Liliana Gil of XL Alliance, a Hispanic marketing firm, writes on the Huffington Post:

With close to 3 million Hispanic owned businesses and 62% of all Latinos being U.S. born, the issues that matter most may be working to the [Republican] party’s benefit given the economic circumstances and overall frustration with the current administration.

So often, political candidates miss the mark when speaking to Hispanic voters, focusing the conversation on issues that, while important in the big picture (like immigration reform), miss the mark on what matters most with this increasingly growing voter base – the economy. Now more than ever the Latino vote is up for grabs in 2012, and it’s up to the parties to focus on reaching out with the proper relevancy and respect the community deserves.

A Latino Decisions August poll indicates that “the most recent poll of Latino voters reveals a continuing political problem for President Barack Obama, which he must address if he wants to get re-elected next year.”

Latino Decisions, which conducts research on and polls of the Latino electorate adds: “Currently, only 38% of Latino voters are certain they will vote for the president next year. This number was 43% in February, when impreMedia/Latino Decisions did a similar poll, and it had increased to 49% in June after the capture of Osama bin Laden and Obama’s speech in El Paso reaffirming his support on immigration.”

Al Punto, a Spanish-language TV news show, recently hosted journalists Julia Preston and Anne Hoyt, who pointed out that Sarah Palin’s announcement that she will not run in 2012 favors Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, and that despite his current lead and his conservative credentials, Herman Cain will have trouble raising the necessary campaign funds.

Preston pointed out that GOP campaigns have spoken on issues important to Latino voters, adding that Romney has taken “a position against the DREAM Act and other issues important for Latinos.”

Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, “an effort by conservative leaders and organizations from across America to advance the cause of just immigration reform,” said this week:

The organization believes that conservatives must recognize the potential harm negative statements against immigrants, and Hispanics in particular, could have toward chances for Republican victories in several key state elections. Without Hispanic support, the Republican Party will face tough battles in the 2012 elections and beyond. We believe that now is not the time to make polarizing statements against this important and rapidly growing electorate.

“We need to find a speedy way to bring a solution” to the lives of immigrants, said Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform cofounder Dr. Juan Hernandez during a Thursday conference call. Hernandez said that Republican candidates support immigration reform but with different definitions.

Dr. Richard Land — president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission — said during the call that “immigration reform is a crisis.”

“I see the passage of restrictive laws by states as something above their pay grade,” he said, adding that immigration reform has to happen at the federal level.

Liberty Counsel founder Dr. Mathew Staver said, “We need to secure the borders, enforce the law and allow the millions living in the shadows a path to the American Dream.”

Staver, Land and Hernandez voiced their support for Gov. Rick Perry’s measures to support in-state college tuition for undocumented students brought here by their parents and educated in Texas.

Rev. Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said that with 50 million Hispanics now living in America, “from a political standpoint it will be difficult for Republicans to win the White House without reaching out to hispanic voters.”

Rodriguez said they will issue a pledge “calling on Republican presidential hopefuls to reject anti-immigrant rhetoric,” adding that it is important to do “away with heavily damaging rhetoric that continues to damage our communities,” which includes blaming immigrants for the economic crisis and higher crime rates.

Paul said he does not want to remove all 11 million undocumented immigrants, but insisted “we must have secure borders and we must not reward people for breaking the law.”

“I don’t think people should come here and esaily become citizens who can vote and receive social benefits,” Paul said, but he added there must be a program to allow “people who want to work to come.”

Paul said there should an assimilation program, but borders remain important and that citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants should not automatic.

Asked if the tea party is an anti-immigrant party Paul said, “I can’t tell you a thing about it because it is sort of all over the place.”

Diario Las Americas, a Miami-based Spanish-language news outlet, wrote late last week that George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism and Ronald Reagan’s “pragmatism” in immigration have been “buried by the new Republican militancy,” due to tea party pressure. The outlet says Republicans are “risking a defeat in 2012″ over the issue.

Las Americas also said that Republican presidential debates have become a competition for who is the strongest or the weakest candidate on illegal immigration. Immigration enforcement activists have said GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry’s distant second-place in the recent Florida straw poll was due to his “weak” statements on immigration.

According to Las Americas, the Republican presidential candidate will need “at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote to win the general elections.”

GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who has steadily become a central figure in today’s Republican Party, spoke in August at the Ronald Reagan Library. His message: Americans want the nation to be free and prosperous, but also compassionate.

New York Daily News columnist Albor Ruiz wrote Sunday that “Rubio supports mandatory E-Verify, has adopted the vacuous GOP mantra ‘border security first,’ and despite past support for a Florida in-state tuition bill, now opposes the federal DREAM Act.”

“But no matter how far right he goes, Rubio will never be American enough for some crazies in the birthers movement,” Ruiz wrote.

He added:

The GOP’s Great Latino Hope could turn out not to be such a good idea after all.

A poll conducted by Latino Decisions on the eve of last November’s election found 78% of Cuban-Americans would vote for Rubio, but only 40% of non-Cuban Latinos would do the same. And this was during his moderate phase.

That in-state tuition law that sailed through the Texas Legislature and across the governor’s desk 10 years ago continues haunting Rick Perry’s presidential campaign in strange new ways, most recently with a hardline anti-illegal immigration group protesting outside a Perry fundraiser, and new complaints about social media censorship from the governor’s supporters.

In Charlotte, N.C., right now, outside a Perry fundraiser at San Antonio’s Modern Mexican restaurant, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is mounting an afternoon protest “designed to forewarn the 81% of Americans found in numerous polls to oppose in-state tuition for illegal aliens about Rick Perry’s unpopular support for illegal immigrants.”

The group announced Thursday that the protest was just one in a nationwide series, designed to tell the world that Perry, in the words of ALIPAC President William Gheen, supports the “illegal immigration invasion of America.”

“Close examination of Rick Perry shows a man that wants to appear to be tough on illegal immigration while in truth he is supporting the illegal immigration invasion of America,” said William Gheen. “Our protest today and the coming protests across the nation are designed to warn voters about Rick Perry’s real positions on illegal immigration before it is too late.”

The group got even more publicity than it bargained for earlier this week, when Americans for Rick Perry’s social media director Clint Cox flagged a Facebook post on the ALIPAC protest to have it removed, the latest awkward attempt from the governor’s camp to avoid negative social media mentions. ALIPAC seized on the mini-scandal.

This flap over the 2001 law granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants has also offered a taller soapbox to tea party groups in Texas that have been asking Perry to bring the Texas Legislature back to harshen up the state’s immigration laws.

It’s a drumbeat they’ve kept up since just after the last legislative session ended, but on Thursday Politico’s Reid Epstein called it “a new front” for Perry’s immigration defense, with the groups’ plans to offer yet another call for a special immigration session of the Legislature. As Dallas-area tea party leader Katrina Pierson suggested to Politico, it’d be a chance for Perry to “clarify his position on illegal immigration.”

“If he can’t get the job done in Texas with a supermajority, with something that he says is a priority, how is he going to get that done in D.C.?” Pierson said. “You have control of everything in Texas, and you still can’t it done. He doesn’t want to get it done.

In an August 2001 speech given during a border summit, Gov. Rick Perry delivered a stirring endorsement of a law passed earlier that year with bipartisan support in the Texas Legislature:

We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, “we don’t care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there.” And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That’s why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate. Those young minds are a part of a new generation of leaders, the doors of higher education must be open to them. The message is simple: educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.

Complete with a Spanish “yes we can,” that speech used rhetoric very similar to language from Democratic politicians today to support the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — otherwise known as the DREAM Act.

Perry signed House Bill 1403 into law a few months earlier, effectively granting undocumented immigrants in Texas the ability to receive in-state tuition at publicly funded colleges and universities.

A decade later, that law is the centerpiece of growing conservative criticism of Perry’s record as Texas governor.

While the law has been compared to the federal version of the proposed DREAM Act, the Texas version has significant differences. The law requires student to reside in Texas with a parent while attending high school, and graduate from a high school or receive a GED in Texas after living in the state for at least three years.

An amendment by Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) requires students to sign an affidavit indicating they will apply for permanent resident status as soon as they can — a measure similar to the federal bill.

The federal DREAM Act, though, is much larger in scope, and requires much more of undocumented students hoping to qualify. The bill’s most recent incarnation requires students to prove that they arrived in the United States before their 16th birthday, and requires them to register for the military draft. There is also the so-called “good moral character” requirement, a sort of criminal background check.

The Texas bill was introduced by former state Rep. Rick Noriega (D-Houston), who would run an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate against Sen. John Cornyn six years later. Noriega had 19 co-authors on his bill, which passed unanimously through the House Higher Education Committee, where nobody testified against the bill.

State Rep. Will Hartnett (R-Dallas) was the only House member to vote against the bill, joined by Mike Jackson (R- Flower Mound), Jane Nelson (R- Denton), and Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) in the Senate.

Lately, Perry has made a point of mentioning how little resistance the bill met at the time.

As the Texas Independent reported in 2010, Noriega said the passed thanks to “the efforts of a very large coalition of businesses, chambers of commerce and advocacy groups. The lone voice in opposition would always be the anti-immigrant community.”

The support for the bill was bipartisan, including some of the staunchest immigration opponents the Capitol has to offer — even state Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler), who’s known for far-right positions on undocumented immigrants, Sharia law and the enduring mystery of President Obama’s birth certificate.

But other Republicans have grilled Perry in presidential debates over the Texas version of the DREAM Act. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he “just can’t follow” the argument for offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, calling it a “$100,000 discount if you’re illegal aliens,” and a “magnet” that draws people into the country.

According to the Dallas Morning News, last year Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board reported that 12,138 undocumented students, or about one percent of all Texas college students, received in-state tuition.

As the Teas Independent reported, even Texas’ Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst piled onto the criticism of the 2001 law, saying that he “would not have signed that law.”
The National Review Online’s The Corner blog called the Texas law “mini-amnesty.”

Perry defended the Texas law during last week’s Fox News/Google debate. “I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said, if you would limit access to education for people who’ve come to the country through “no fault of their own.”

Meanwhile, Perry also opposes a federal DREAM Act, sticking to his 10th Amendment guns, saying the federal law is “just amnesty and I’m not for amnesty.”