If you’ve ever read any of the comments on our Facebook political posts, you know a lot of young Latinos are feeling the Bern. Of the 18- to 34-year-olds that participated, 49% said they were planning on voting for the Vermont Senator. The good news for Hillary is that people over the age of 35 are overwhelmingly on her side.
Marco Rubio leads the way with Republicans.
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Sorry Donald, but Latinos rather support Rubio over you. For those who identified as Republican, 34% said they were planning on voting for the son of two Cuban immigrants.
1 in 2 Latinos will vote for a Democrat; 1 in 3 are unsure.
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If these numbers hold, the Latino vote will go to the Democrats no matter what. 51% of respondents said they were voting blue, only 14% said they were voting Republican, and 32% are unsure who they’ll vote for.
It was true in 2014 when Pew Hispanic did a comprehensive survey about Latino issues, and it’s still true now: the economy and jobs are still a top of what concerns our community the most.
Immigration is now more important.
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Speaking of that 2014 Pew Hispanic poll, immigration ranked 4th as the most important issue for Latinos. Two years later, it’s moved up two spots. Could it be that Republicans threatening to deport everyone and their mothers brought the issue to the forefront?
Register to vote today by downloading the Latinos Vote app for iOS and Android. Our voice matters. #WeAreAmerica
An overwhelming majority of Americans support protecting Dreamers. Hundreds of thousands of young adults rely on the protection from deportation and work authorization to live with dignity and out of the shadows. Presidential nominee Joe Biden wants to make sure they stay protected.
Dreamers are looking to a Biden administration to finish what an Obama administration started.
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According to the official Biden campaign website, the presidential nominee will work with Congress to reinstate DACA protections and to create a pathway to citizenship. DACA was won by undocumented activists putting fear aside and publicly fought to change the minds of Americans and politicans.
“Undocumented ‘youth’ are no longer youth,” says Moises Serrano, DACA activist and the man profiled in the documentary “Forbidden.” “DACA recipients and undocumented immigrants have been living in fear and instability for decades now. We survived eight years under the Obama administration and four years under the Trump administration. Immigration reform was promised under the Obama-Biden platform; a promise that is still unfulfilled.”
He added: “We hope that President Biden puts an end to the instability in our lives once and for all, or we are ready to hold him accountable in the same way we held Obama accountable in our fight for Administrative Relief.”
Biden’s policy proposes protecting Dreamers and helping them advance in this country.
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Biden promises to reinstate DACA to protect Dreamers and will be looking into ways to protect their families. The policy put forth by a potential Biden administration is pivotal in giving those who are DACA recipients a chance to live without fear and with all of the rights as their fellow citizens.
“After living through a deep loss in 2016 after losing my second mother and only being granted access to be on her deathbed in Mexico through my ability to get advanced parole through DACA I learned that no loss would ever be greater than that,” said Cindy Nava, a DACA recipient, political operative and policy advocate. “However, November rolled around and another loss took place. One that impacted my life, that of my family and my community.”
DACA is a very important issue as hundreds of thousands of Dreamers are on the line.
Credit: Biden For President / Flickr
People like Nava are hopeful that a Biden administration will bring that dignity back to the immigrant community. It is a community that is vibrant and has contributed vastly to American culture. A BIden administration would be a chance for Nava to see herself reflected in government.
“I am hopeful to see the daughter of immigrants, a woman of color, and a woman I can finally feel represented by be sworn in as the first woman VP of this country,” Nava says. “I will look forward to an administration that listens to the communities it intends to represent. An administration that empowers the entire country to work with each other to support, strengthen, respect and uplift each other each and every day. An administration that values and is grateful for the contributions that immigrants bring to the foundation of our country each and every day.”
Nava wants to see an immigration reform that puts immigrant humanity at the forefront. One that understands the needs for people to seek refuge and a better life in a foreign country.
“No immigrant seeks to find a fix on a silver platter. Nor do they believe that this will be an easy task,” Nava says. “The only thing our families ask for is a chance. Una oportunidad para recordarle a este pais that their lucha and determination comes from a deep sense of ganas to create a life filled with more opportunities than they ever had.”
The battle over DACA is far from over but it is clear that the Trump administration is on the wrong side of public opinion. Biden’s plan would strengthen DACA and restore the program to its full functionality.
In 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions held a press conference terminating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on behalf of the Trump administration. Since then hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients have lived in uncertainty. President Donald Trump tried to rewrite history at his town hall event Oct. 15.
President Donald Trump blamed the end of DACA on Covid during his town hall.
Where do we even start here? Trump’s suggesting that DACA recipients, WHO ARE AMERICANS LIVING IN THE U.S., could bring the coronavirus here from Mexico.
The truth is that President Trump’s administration attempted to end DACA in 2017. Former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions was the attorney general at the time and made the announcement in a press conference. Since then, the Trump administration has continued to advance a lawsuit to terminate the program. DACA allows for hundreds of thousands of adults to work and live in the U.S. without fear of deportation.
Long before Covid, the Trump administration was told to resume DACA as intended.
The pandemic has nothing to do with the administration's efforts to curtail DACA. https://t.co/xmBFVmTMvm
Instead, the Trump administration has violated federal orders and continued to restrict DACA and those who can apply. The Supreme Court refused to hear arguments against DACA meaning that the lower court’s ruling stood. The ruling was that the Trump administration had to reinstate the program in full. However, the Supreme Court did not dismiss the case allowing for the administration to come back.
President Trump also claimed that DACA recipients and Dreamers are not that same.
DACA recipients are called Dreamers. They’re literally the same. DACA is not the same as the DREAM Act, which is a proposed law to allow conditional residency and work permits to immigrants who came here as children. The DREAM Act would allow a path to citizenship. DACA does not.
Another falsehood by the president at the town hall. DACA recipients are indeed Dreamers. The term Dreamers does apply to DACA recipients who would benefit from the DREAM Act. The legislation would legally enshrine the protections of DACA and was introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois in 2001. Over the course of 19 years, the piece of legislation has not moved despite the overwhelming support from the American public.
People watching the town hall were quick to call out President Trump.
People are not letting President Trump get away with trying to rewrite history about DACA. His administration is the one trying to strip DACA recipients of their protections. At one point, President Trump tried using DACA recipients as political pawns in an attempt to secure funding for his border wall.
Voters are calling on other voters to help protect the program in November.
The two nominees have very different DACA plans. President Trump has and will continue to try to take away the protections from DACA recipients. Former Vice President Joe Biden has a plan to offer citizenship to DACA recipients, something American voters support. DACA is a wildly popular program that gives some of the most vulnerable people in our society a chance to live a normal life.
