Marshall, MN – National pro-immigrant Republican group Cafe Con Leche Republicans, today reacted to Vice-President Joe Biden’s latest claim about immigration reform. Biden is quoted by Politico:

Right now, you’ve got the president and I and a lot of Democrats out there breaking our neck trying to get a real immigration law that takes millions of people out of the shadows, making sure that ‘Dreamers’ don’t have to go back in many cases to countries they’ve never been,

If the Latino vote comes out, the Hispanic vote comes out and changes the election, all of a sudden those guys who paid no attention to you, no attention to the Hispanic community, no attention to the Latino community. All of a sudden they’re going to say, ‘Oh my Lord I guess we better get in line with the president. I guess we better start moving in the direction of paying attention to this incredible, this incredible pool of talent we have out there. So this is a chance to gain influence that’s almost disproportionate to the impact that you may have directly in the election.

Bob Quasius, president of Cafe Con Leche Republicans, taken aback by Biden’s statements, reacted:

Earlier this week we blasted Obama for his long record of ‘immigration fakery‘, making promises at election time, then once elected putting nothing on the table, and blaming Republicans for his own lack of leadership on immigration reform. Obama ignored the Hispanic community until it was time to fire up his campaign and discovered enthusiasm among Hispanics was lacking.

Incredibly, now Biden claims the Obama administration has been ‘breaking their necks’ on immigration reform. The Obama administration has deported record numbers of immigrants, not just “gang bangers” as Obama claimed, but DREAM eligible youth, and many long term residents who did not have criminal records. During the first six months of 2011, our “Deporter-in-Chief” deported 46,686 parents who had at least one U.S. citizen child, while more than 5,100 children of immigrants have ended up in foster care because their parents had either been detained or deported, according to ICE.

Obama has aggressively rolled out secure communities nationwide despite widespread complaints the program fuels racial profiling, and a recent study found 3,600 Latino citizens were falsely arrested! Thousands of Latino citizens born in South Texas have also been denied U.S. passports, and as reported by CNN, some were deported, based merely on Hispanic surname and midwife birth.

Obama failed to exercise leadership with Congress on immigration reform and put nothing on the table during his first two years, even when Democrats enjoyed super-majorities in both Houses of Congress. Instead, in June of 2011 Obama offered a ‘deferred action’ plan (“Morton Memo“) for long term residents with family ties, DREAM eligible youth, etc., presenting as “new policy” existing DHS policy for deferred action,  that had existed since 2000 (“Meisner memo“).

Under DHS policy that has existed since 2000, the Obama administration could have curbed deportations of DREAM eligible youth and long term residents without criminal records, but failed to act until it was time to launch his reelection campaign.

One year after the Morton memo was released, ICE had ‘reviewed’ 411,000 cases for deferred action, and closed just 2%. Recent numbers for Obama’s latest deferred action plan showed that just 2% of those who applied had been granted relief. The program is a ‘band aid’ that offers two years of relief from deportation, with no guarantee applicants will be spared deportation after two years.

Biden’s choice of words was in poor taste, though not surprising given Biden’s long history of gaffes. This reminds us that Joe Biden is just a heartbeat away from the presidency, and his selection as Obama’s running mate a second time highlights another Obama bad hiring decision.

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About Us – Cafe Con Leche Republicans is a national organization of Republicans who welcome “New Americans”, defined as immigrants and family of recent immigrants. Our mission is to make America and the GOP, more welcoming to “New Immigrants” through political activism, “in-reach” and education within the Republican Party, and lobbying government to adopt more immigrant friendly policies. We also seek to bring more conservative and moderate “New Americans” to the Republican Party. These efforts will strengthen the GOP, and lead more Republicans to embrace welcoming policies for immigrants and their families. We have members nationwide, with chapters in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and California. Our members and leadership are predominantly Hispanic, though we define ourselves by mission and guiding principles, not ethnicity, and we welcome all who share our goals. Our leadership is 100% Republican.

By Thomas Martin Salazar, (content originally Published through Cafe con Leche Republicans)

In 2008 President Obama made a promise to many Hispanics and Latinos that said he would make immigration reform priority. He promised that immigration reform was an important issue that should not wait to be addressed down the road, but during his first term.

Here we are four years later and in an interview with Univision, Obama tells the American people that his greatest failure was not passing comprehensive immigration reform.  This would be ironic if it was not such a tragic understatement. In fact, President Obama and his administration are aggressively  enforcing  immigration laws.

In the last four years President Obama rounded up and deported more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants. Moreover, he masqueraded as an immigration reformer – working to seduce the Latino community, by suing Arizona all the way up to the Supreme Court for passing SB 1070 and by opposing Maricopa county Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Yes Obama and his campaign surrogates boast with pride about how Obama is the immigrant’s champion, but they neglect to tell the truth about Obama’s own immigration policies.

They conveniently ignore the fact that Obama has pioneered the Secure Communities program. According to a Research Report by Aarti Kohli, Peter Markowitz, and Lisa Chavez, President Obama took this pilot program, which was started under President Bush, from 14 jurisdictions to 1,595. This program empowers state and local police all throughout the United States, to do the very exact things for which his administration sued Arizona and Maricopa county Sheriff Joe Arpaio. More revealing statistics from the same research study states,

“Latinos comprise 93% of individuals arrested through Secure Communities though they only comprise 77% of the undocumented population in the United States;”

And

“Only 2% of non-citizens arrested through Secure Communities are granted relief from deportation by an immigration judge as compared to 14% of all immigration court respondents who are granted relief”

This is unequivocally a disproportionate assault on Latinos. But the facts do not stop here.  The President has deported more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants, which averages to just below 400,000 people a year. Furthermore, Obama’s immigration policies have left more than 5,000 American citizens in foster care because their parents were rounded up and deported. His administration in the name of national security continues to deny passports to United States citizens whose birth certificates came from midwife and not through a hospital. This has disproportionately affected Latinos. This new policy of no longer accepting midwife birth certificates as an acceptable form of Identification goes far beyond just impacting Latinos who are seeking to obtain passports; in fact, there are even incidents where Federal immigration officials coerced United States citizens into signing away their citizenship. These are not the actions of a man who cares about immigrants and their families nor is it the actions of an immigration reformer.

Recently Obama has again been making his rounds – reaching out to Latinos with his promise and message of reform. Ironically, Obama and his campaign want Americans to believe that immigration reform will become a reality within the next four years. Indeed, it is such an important issue to our President that he failed to even reference immigration in his new glossy pamphlet. Thus it seems that immigration reform is not as important as the President claims.  Then again, in the first four years immigration reform was supposedly a high priority.

While the President plays the victim, blaming lack of bipartisanship for why he has failed to pass immigration reform, I would ask you to look at his real record on immigration. Look at the millions of people he has rounded up and deported. Moreover, how debased it is that our government would see fit to seize children from their own parents, and place them in the foster care system. What type of nation have we become, when basic parental rights and child rights are neglected? Sadly, under President Obama this is a reality. Obama needs to be held accountable for his deception. In the end, Latinos have a choice of either voting for the deporter-in-chief or they can vote for a new direction.

Editors note: as with all blog postings that appear with a by-line, the opinions presented are the author’s and not necessarily the positions of Cafe Con Leche Republicans.

Thomas Martin Salazar is an Arizona leader of the Café con Leche Republicans. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from Grand Canyon University and is currently working on obtaining a MDiv in Biblical Communication from Phoenix Seminary. Thomas has also served as the Grand Canyon University College Republicans Vice President and interim President (February 2007-April 2008) and as a Maricopa County Republican Precinct committeeman (August 2009 – August 2012).

by Bob Quasius (re-posted from Cafe Con Leche Republicans)

A common Democratic party narrative told to Latinos, especially in Arizona, is they should register as Democrats and vote a straight Democratic ticket, because those evil racist Republicans want to racially profile them and deport all Latinos. This is a blatant exaggeration, an obvious attempt to keep Latinos on the ‘liberal hacienda’, as few – if any – Republicans are seeking to deport Latino citizens.

A May 2001 in-dept study by Pew Research suggests a more accurate narrative to describe Republican attitudes on immigration: ‘a majority of Republicans favor immigration reform, including a path to legalization for unauthorized immigrants, and as with Americans in general, a strong majority of Republicans favor more immigration enforcement.’ The Pew Research poll also found that even among the most staunch conservatives, there is a 49%/49% split on immigration reform. Republicans are clearly not monolithic on immigration reform, and statistics like Pew Research’s hardly support any notion that Republicans are anti-Latino.

Contrary to the Democratic narrative, Democratic administrations have deported more Latino immigrants than Republican administrations. Obama has deported 1.5 million immigrants, mostly Latinos, and leading many to dub Obama our “deporter-in-chief.”

Which president has deported the most Latino citizens? Though Obama has deported more Latino citizens than any president in recent history, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forced out more Latino citizens than any other president in history. During the great depression, a program called “the great repatriation” forced approximately one million “Mexicans” to leave the U.S. either by force or by making discrimination so pervasive that many could not find employment and simply left. Various historians estimate 60% of those who left were U.S. Citizens. The “great repatriation” was authorized by Herbert Hoover, but mostly took place during FDR’s administration.

Who is America’s worst racial profiler? Immediately for most, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio comes to mind. Sheriff Joe has become infamous among Latinos for his trademark immigration sweeps of Hispanic neighborhoods, looking for minor traffic and other infractions as a pretext to investigate immigration status. A recent study conducted by an outside police executive, and authorized by the U.S. Department of Justice, found Latinos in Maricopa County are from four to nine times more likely stopped by police than non-Latinos, and 20% of Latino traffic stops lacked probable cause. However, despite Joe Arpaio’s notoriety he is not America’s worst racial profiler.

However, the title of “racial-profiler-in-chief” rightly belongs to an Arizona Democrat named Janet Napolitano! As Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, she head’s America’s largest law enforcement agency, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). ICE and CBP are notorious for the use of racial profiling in immigration enforcement, but these agencies are only part of the reason Janet Napolitano merits this notoriety. Napolitano has very aggressively rolled out the Secure Communities program, in which state and local law enforcement share fingerprint data from local jails, even though this program has generated widespread complaints about the racial profiling S-COMM has fueled.

According to a recent study of Secure Communities, 93% of those arrested under S-COMM are Latinos, while Latinos represent 78% of the unauthorized immigrant community and 3,600 U.S. citizens have been falsely arrested. One revealing statistic is that nearly 50% of those arrested under s-comm were NOT jailed for committing a crime but rather traffic or similar non-criminal violations of the law, which confirms pervasive complaints that Latinos are being jailed rather than cited for such minor traffic infractions as cracked windshields, broken tail lights (including on bicycles), frost on car windows, expired vehicle registration, speeding, etc. State and local police don’t usually have the ability to check immigration status of those they stop, but jails do. It’s apparent that increasingly Latinos who are stopped for traffic infractions are being jailed rather than cited so their immigration status can be investigated, which is racial profiling because outcomes of traffic stops are different for Latinos, and some police will target Latinos for traffic stops on the suspicion they may be unauthorized immigrants. Less than one in five Latinos are unauthorized, so the result is that thousands of law abiding citizens are subjected to the humiliation of jail for routine police encounters such as traffic infractions!

Secure Communities has become so controversial that some states, including Massachusetts and New York have objected to participation, while other states already in the program, such as Illinois, have sought to withdraw. In response to widespread complaints about racial profiling, lack of following priorities, etc. DHS created a review panel, but in the end their recommendations were watered down, and the only change is that DHS agreed not to deport low level offenders for traffic infractions until they had been convicted. Five members of the panel were so outraged at the ‘whitewash job’ they quit the panel in disgust, while the other 14 panel members who didn’t quit were very critical of DHS.

Secure Communities started out as voluntary, but under Napolitano states now have no option but to participate and remain in the program if they wish to opt-out as they were promised under Bush. Like the great repatriation, which began under Hoover, Secure Communities began under a Republican administration as a pilot voluntary program, but vastly expanded under a Democratic administration.

by Linda Vega (re-posted with permission of the author and Latinos Ready to Vote)

Words are strong and can persuade.   They can create division or they can unite.  Words can hurt or they can heal. It is the rhetoric that will drive Latinos away from the GOP, many contend.  What many journalists and bloggers, and other people scream about is what is not being said regarding Latinos. And it matters. The Liberals state that GOP Presidential candidates cannot count on the Latino vote because of the rhetoric that has instilled fear in the Latino community.  They are correct.  However, what they fail to address is that actions speak louder than words.  Actions brought to light by the present administration are dangerous to Latinos because they are perilous to the Latino families and community.  In implementing Secured Communities, which by all accounts was supposed to secure the U.S. and Communities across the nation, the Obama Administration has managed to use Secured Communities to deport Latinos (U.S. citizens and not), separate families, and drown out opportunity.  In fact, this Administration has done more to discourage, separate families, and harm the Latino community than any other previous Administration, Republican or Democrat.

In a study done by the Berkley School of Law and the Cardozo Law Center, the Obama Administration deported 400,000 Latinos in one year using the Secured Communities as an excuse.  My reaction at first was great, it is doing what it intended.  Secured Communities, as it was introduced by President Bush in April 2008, was intended to help keep our communities safe by identifying those in the U.S. who were criminal illegal aliens, and those who were in the U.S. with the intent of furthering any bombing or terrorists activities.  However, the present Administration took it a step further and began mass deportations of Latinos.

The use of the word “discretionary,” in the law allows (as it is in SB 1070) authorities to apprehend, question, detain, and often times deport, those looking “illegal.”  This has never been defined exactly.  Instead, authorities are given “discretion” to question those looking “illegal.”

No one in the media like CNN, NBC, or Latino Fox News has reported that out of the pool of 400,000 in one year 1.6% of these persons detained by ICE were U.S. citizens.  This is more than the Bush Administration deported (even with errors) in 4 years.  In fact, DHS Secretary Napolitano boasted that the program was doing its share and was helping to keep American safe.    What the DOJ and the Obama Administration failed to voice was that at least 1.6% of those arrested were U.S. citizens.  In a further law recently signed by the President, these U.S. Citizens can now be detained indefinitely under the  National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  Further studies by AILA, American Immigration Lawyers Association, report that deportations are closer to 1 million in two years.   That amount is close to the total population of San Antonio, which is at 1.33 Million.   Imagine, an entire city gone, by “legal means.”   What is more alarming is that while there is an alleged 11 million undocumented in the U.S.,  only 77% are Latino/Hispanic.  Those detained and arrested under Secured Communities were 93% Latino.  There is a disproportion in usage of this program.  In other words, this Administration is targeting Latinos.

Rather than report on this truth, the media  and their articles concentrate only on Republican rhetoric.  While words are powerful, do we, as Latinos and Americans, not feel in danger when Latino U.S. Citizens are randomly selected, harassed and incarcerated by this Administration as law breakers?  When the Attorney General and the President use their power, over Congress, to increase deportations they are not deporting Europeans, Asians, or other immigrants.  They are deporting Latinos.  So while the rhetoric in the GOP may be against illegal immigrants, this current Administration is effectively doing the cleansing of America by deporting Latinos, illegal and U.S. Citizens.

Additionally, when the “fast and furious” debacle came to light regarding the issuance of guns to Mexican Cartels, who were they aiming at?  Those who live along the border and are mainly Mexican, including U.S. Citizens.  Once again, the rhetoric of the GOP pales in comparison to what is being done against Latinos in this Administration.  The idea that the Attorney General would allow such a violent act against a group of people and believe that the guns would not be traced back to the Administration is negligent and contentious.  Latinos cannot begin to believe that a President and a “friend” to Latinos would commit such atrocities, but he has.  In using the laws and his Administration, this President has endangered families and Latinos who continue to view him as the leader of the free world.  What is even more deplorable is that Latino Democrats have not stood up to state that these actions are wrong and need to be remedied regardless of party loyalty.  These acts are wrong against Americans, Latinos, families, and the United States and all of its freedoms.    In fact, this Administration has failed the Latino Community because it lacks the interest and the understanding of what values are embodied within the community.

When Candidates like Newt Gingrich address the actual facts about food stamps stating that Americans have increased as recipients of this entitlement under the Obama Administration, Democrats cite this as racist. But they fail to address the fact that the largest number, of the population, who is receiving food stamps are white Americans not blacks. So why are they playing the race card?  If we ask what Latinos hope to gain under the Obama Administration, let’s look over the last three years, deportations, guns to cartels, cuts in education availability, and separation of families.

When those who attack the GOP as being anti-Latino because of rhetoric that looks to deport illegal immigrants, let us be clear about who is acting on these words.  Unlike that famous speech that then Sen. Barrack Obama delivered at the DNC in which he said, we are not a black American or white America, we are the United States of American.  He forgot to mention the Brown part of America, Latinos.

by Bob Quasius

The short answer is yes, there are non-citizens voting, but in very small numbers, and less of a problem than other forms of voter fraud. In researching voter photo ID, which Cafe Con Leche Republicans supports, I also researched illegal voter registration and voting by non-citizens. Here I will attempt to put the problem into perspective.

Last night an Irish Central blog posting claiming massive problems with illegal voting by non-citizens caught my attention, prompting me to dig deeper. Similar claims usually turn out to be baseless or wildly overblown.

A network of organizations founded by population control progressive John Tanton often makes baseless claims about immigrants. Tanton founded or led more than 20 organizations that seek to reduce population growth from immigration. Tanton is the founder of the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA (with Roy Beck), Center for Immigration Studies, and held leadership positions in groups such as Zero Population Growth, Planned Parenthood, and environmental grouips. Tanton’s organizations have a long history of making wildly inflated and false claims about immigration, in promoting their agenda.

Tanton is known to manipulate Republicans, stoking fears that immigrants invariably vote Democrat, which is nonsense. From a Tanton letter to a supporter:

The goal is to change Republicans’ perception of immigration so that when they encounter the word “immigrant,” their reaction is “Democrat.”

Our plan is to hire a lobbyist who will carry the following message to Republicans on Capitol Hill and to business leaders: Continued massive immigration will soon cost you political control of the White House and Congress, given the current, even division of the electorate, and the massive infusion of voters about to be made to the Democratic side. We are about to replay the Democratic hegemony of 1933-53, fueled back then by the massive immigration of 1890-1924.

From the Irish Central blog:

Colorado IDENTIFIED 12,000 illegal voters on its rolls and ascertained that 5,000 of them voted in the last election. The Republican Senate candidate was narrowly defeated by the Democrat….But how many illegal voters didn’t they identify?

The Colorado connection immediately caught my attention. In 2006, Governor Bill Owens called a special session of the legislature to pass laws to prevent 50,000 unauthorized immigrants from receiving tens of billions of dollars in welfare benefits. There was huge fanfare in the news media, and the legislature passed a tough set of laws to stop all those dastardly immigrants from sucking Colorado dry. Millions of dollars were spent auditing Colorado welfare rolls and licensing and not a single unauthorized immigrant was found receiving welfare benefits or licenses! There has hardly been any media coverage of the failure to find any unauthorized immigrants collecting welfare. No doubt many remember the initial hysteria, special session, etc. Numerous other states have audited their welfare rolls and found just a handful of unauthorized immigrants, if any.

Colorado has a long history of immigration hysteria, led by one of America’s leading xenophobes, Tom Tancredo. Not surprisingly, the claims of massive illegal voting by non-citizens proved to be vastly overblown as well. From the Denver Post:

At least 88 percent of the approximately 1,400 suspected non-citizens run through a federal database by the Colorado Secretary of State’s office were determined to be U.S. citizens, and are therefore eligible to vote.

The office is looking further at the remaining roughly 168 people, but that list may also include people who are citizens, said Michael Hagihara of the state’s elections division.

[...] the number of voters still in question equals less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of Colorado’s approximately 3.5 million registered voters.

Last May, the Miami Herald reported:

Nearly 2,700 potential non-U.S. citizens are registered to vote in Florida and some could have been unlawfully casting ballots for years, according to a Miami Herald-CBS4 analysis of elections data.

Earlier this month, the Tampa Bay Times reported:

U.S. District Judge Willam J. Zloch denied a request from a coalition of voting-rights groups to halt the purge of 198 potential non-citizens.

The Irish Central Blog claims that Loretta Sanchez was elected due to illegal non-citizen votes, when incumbent Bob Dornan lost by just 984 votes:

California lost a conservative congressman when his district was flooded with illegal alien votes. He was replaced with liberal Democrat, Loretta Sanchez.

However, a congressional panel soon whittled a list of 7,841 alleged illegal voters down to 624 after reviewing immigration records, then discontinued the probe since even if all 624 were indeed illegal voters that voted for Sanchez, that would not be enough to change the outcome. As explained later, it’s likely that at least some of the 624 voters were citizens but were flagged as non-citizens due to errors in immigration records, name confusion, etc.

From these and other stories, we can draw several conclusions:

• When politicians make claims of massive voting by non-citizens, it usually turns out to be wildly exaggerated. In all three cases mentioned, the actual numbers of illegal voters after a first pass review turned out to be around 10%, before delving deeper into individual cases.
• Politicians making these claims are usually relying on driving records, when a person may have been a non-citizen when they obtained their license, but later became a naturalized citizen and registered to vote. Drivers records aren’t automatically updated reflect their new citizenship until the driver renews, so without further review politicians often are misled and exaggerate the actual numbers.
• Their first reaction is often to demand access to DHS databases. However, DHS databases only contain records of persons who were in the immigration system at some point, and to search a DHS immigration database one needs an alien “A” number. Native born citizens and unauthorized immigrants with and previous contact with DHS won’t be found in DHS immigration databases either.
• Other times, DHS databases are simply in error. A recent study of Secure Communities found 3,600 U.S. Citizens who had been arrested and held as unauthorized immigrants, despite the use of fingerprints for accuracy.
• There is no question that there are non-citizens who register and vote, either because they are confused about their lack of voting right or they simply break the law. As with any other illegal voters, they should certainly be held accountable. The numbers of non-citizens voting are very small, but there are always close races where even a handful of illegitimate votes can throw an election.

I am more concerned about voting by dead people, fraudulent voter registrations by non-existent persons, absentee ballot fraud, and multiple registrations, though all sources of vote fraud need to be addressed.

Election officials certainly should review records and purge voters who appear to be ineligible, and public confidence in our elections needs to be restored. Recent scandals have shaken the public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections.

However, because of strong possibility that a supposed non-citizen may in fact be a citizen, it is essential that voter purges follow a meticulous process, with adequate time for voters to contest purge decisions. No one should be denied their vote without due process.