The only way we will know President Obama is sincerely genuine in helping us with the immigration issue is if he puts a bill that will garner strong bipartisan support on the floor. He has been promising to fix the immigration issue for years now, and we hope the immigration issue does not get treated as a political football again. We also hope Republicans do not use this issue to further alienate Hispanics from the GOP party, but time will tell.  Read Official Statement by Somos Republicans below:

National Hispanic GOP Group Responds to President Obama’s Immigration Speech in El Paso, Texas

For Immediate Release – 10 May 2011

Phoenix, AZ –SOMOS REPUBLICANS is the largest conservative Hispanic Republican grassroots organization in the country committed to promoting positive solutions that confront our community and the nation today.  We are glad that President Obama wants to elevate the discussion on legal immigration again.  We have been staunch supporters of legal immigration across the Union — from Florida to Texas to Iowa to California and more. As immigration advocates, we have suffered because isolationists  want unrealistic enforcement-only policies and they have attacked our positions that can only benefit the American economy.

On the eve of Arizona’s harsh anti-immigrant law, we heard President Obama’s speech last year that emulated the one we heard today, however, the problem still exists.  We were glad the Obama administration filed the injunction that led to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in essence declaring the immigration issue a federal issue.  Because this is a federal issue, the Obama administration must put a legal immigration bill on the floor in order to facilitate meaningful debate towards solving this tough issue.

Even though we are very happy to hear President Obama raise the immigration issue again, we have not forgotten his promise in 2008 when he promised Latinos to fix the broken immigration system. Obama still has time to put a genuine and reasonable immigration solution that both parties can support before the upcoming 2012 elections.  We know that Democrats could have passed an immigration solution the same way they passed Obamacare when they had the super majority in Congress, however, the job was not fulfilled.

That said, Republicans also should acknowledge that President Obama has spent more money on securing the borders and deporting more undocumented immigrants than President George W. Bush.  As a result of President Obama’s increased deportations of immigrants, the Gallup shows his approval among Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing demographic, has also fallen.

We sincerely hope the immigration issue is not being used as a political football yet again.  We have personally watched several families that have been forced apart due to mass deportations.  It is discouraging for us to see our Latino Democratic and Republican brothers and sisters beg for help as we rally at the state capitols fighting these anti-immigrant laws. It is painful seeing our Latin community suffer. Hate crimes have increased due to the anti-immigrant sentiment against Latinos nation-wide. We see American-born children crying as they are left behind when their parents get deported.  Some Republicans who claim to be “pro family” have been silent with regard to immigrant families being forced apart.

We are skeptical about President Obama raising the immigration issue again,  and we do not really know if he has a real intention of fixing the problem. The only way we will surely know he is serious about this issue is when he ensures an immigration bill is put on the floor that will garner strong bipartisan support.

We acknowledge that both Republicans and Democrats need political covering on the immigration issue, and we promise to give the President, Republicans and Democrats immigration political covering as we continue to build a national movement for the issues that affect the Latino community.  We believe that working across the aisle is vital to the bipartisan solution we are seeking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Increased Hate Crimes against Latinos, Latino Republicans Vocal Against Unconstitutional laws and harm towards our economy, Secure Borders and Reasonable Immigration Solution. Tags for this post: Barbara Boxer, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balaart, Harry Reid, National GOP Group Responds to Obama's Immigration Speech in El Paso, Senator Bill Nelson, Senator Bob Menendez, Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Graham, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Senator Josheph Lieberman, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.