US Latinos Want More From Obama Charles McDermid - Al Jazeera
go to original September 7, 2012

Record numbers of undocumented immigrants in the United States have been deported by the Obama administration. In response, a group of undocumented immigrants is riding across the country from Arizona, home of some of the nation's strictest immigration laws, to attend the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Al Jazeera)

CHARLOTTE, NC - At the same moment Latino mayor Julian Castro made history on Tuesday by giving the keynote address for President Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, a group of activists was sitting in a nearby jail for a street protest against the president's treatment of undocumented immigrants.
 
In June, Obama launched the Deferred Action programme, a stop-gap measure that provides temporary relief from deportation and could allow as many as two million young people to remain in the US. Over the past four years, however, Obama has deported more than one million undocumented immigrants, more than any other president.
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Stark contradictions like these are only part of Obama's Latino paradox; a counterintuitive scenario that has secured the president the default support of the nation's king-making, 50-million-strong Latino community - without, experts say, addressing its most pressing problems.
 
As the presidential vote approaches, some Latino leaders are not amused.
 
"This election is a huge challenge for the Latino community. There is clearly elation among some young people because of Deferred Action, but at the same time there is the record of what he has done. What he has put into practice, is not what he has claimed he would do. There is a lot of uneasiness and questioning about support for Obama,” said Sylvia Puente, executive director of Latino Policy Forum, a Chicago-based policy and advocacy group.
 
"He has deported 400,000 people each year for the last four years, about 1.2 million people. This has had a devastating impact on people’s lives. Everybody I know knows someone who has been deported."

On Obama's record, analysts and Latino leaders who spoke to Al Jazeera ran down a long list of false hopes and faint overtures, especially on immigration reform.

Read more at Al Jazeera

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