President Obama custom tailors his pitch to Latinos

Obama has recently hosted the Latino press for at least three White House roundtables. | AP Photo

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Over the past few months, the Obama administration has rolled out a series of executive actions that often garner little attention from the English-language press but get huge coverage in the Spanish-language media and other outlets favored by Hispanics. As Obamas GOP rivals face the primaries first sizable group of Latino voters, in Florida, the presidents use of executive power to court the potentially pivotal demographic group already is well under way. And Obamas team is heavily promoting his actions to their target audience. When Obama sat down with Spanish-language network Univision on Wednesday, one of the first things he did was boast about the immigration policies hes altered. Some of the changes that were making on immigration, were trying to make sure that were prioritizing criminals [for deportation], the president said, without really being asked. Latino advocates say theyve noticed a new level of engagement from the White House. They want to tell Latinos what theyre doing. Thats clear, said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), an outspoken immigration reform advocate who has pushed the administration to take unilateral steps to ease and refocus immigration enforcement.

Gutierrez said the proposals initially got a chilly reception from Obama and his aides, but the administration seems to be coming around. Before they werent worried about communicating with anyone in terms of the immigration sphere, except the very restrictionist community which they spoke to in very clear terms for three years. Every time they had a press conference on how many deportations, they werent shy about telling us, Gutierrez said. So, there is a difference [now], and Im happy. Does it take a campaign to bring that out? Maybe. But there are more families being kept together as a result of the changes. The steady stream of under-the-radar moves to tweak the immigration system are aimed at re-energizing Latino voters disappointed by Obamas failure to win or even make a serious push on a comprehensive immigration overhaul, and by the recordsetting number of deportations carried out since Obama took office, Democrats say. Gutierrez dates the administrations new focus on immigration issues to Obamas appearance last July before the National Council of La Raza. As Obama explained to the Latino activists that he had little ability to change the immigration process without help from Congress, the crowd broke into a variation of his 2008 campaign slogan. Yes, you can. Yes, you can, they chanted. I think at that point [Obama aides] said, You know what? We can, Gutierrez said. Since that visit, the administration has discovered new flexibility to change a variety of immigration-related policies without the approval of Congress. In August, the federal government promised to refocus deportations on criminals and launched an unprecedented review of all pending deportation cases, including those in which a final deportation order has been issued. In December, the Department of Homeland Security announced a toll-free hot line for citizens mistakenly detained as foreigners. Earlier this month, Obamas appointees began the process of tweaking the green-card policy, curtailing potentially dangerous trips to consulates in violence-plagued Mexico another change the president highlighted in his Univision interview. A few days later, DHS released a policy enhancing the rights of lawyers representing immigrants in deportation proceedings. In the mainstream press, I dont see a lot of news about the waiver [process for green cards] and the deportation review, but you can see that in the Spanish media all the time, said Antonieta Cadiz, White House correspondent for La Opinin, a Spanish-

language paper in Los Angeles. The administrative relief measures: Thats something important.

Obama has also hosted the Latino press for at least three White House roundtables in recent months, including reporters for local Spanish-language newspapers. We have access, Cadiz said. But Cadiz said the new measures and outreach have only partly reassured Latinos disappointed by the failure to overhaul immigration laws, which Obama promised to make a major push for in his first year in office. She also called the volume of deportations a huge problem Obama has to overcome. A Pew Hispanic Center poll taken late last year found 59 percent of U.S. Latinos disapprove of Obamas deportation policy. But Obama, his aides and many in the Latino community say the GOP presidential candidates tough anti-immigration rhetoric is easing the presidents effort to reclaim the Hispanic vote. Mitt Romney campaigned in South Carolina with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a villain to many Latinos for his role in drafting state laws to crack down on illegal immigrants. In a debate last week in Florida, Romney urged selfdeportation for illegal immigrants, a notion unlikely to sit well with many Hispanics. Newt Gingrich has struck more moderate notes on immigration, but both he and Romney have endorsed English as the official national language and have vowed to veto the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow a path to citizenship for individuals who came to the U.S. illegally as children but are enrolled in college or the military. (Romney said hed sign such a measure if it were limited to the military.) During a November roundtable with Latino journalists, Obama suggested that his campaign wouldnt need to do much to woo Hispanics since Republicans seem to be alienating them. We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We wont even comment on them, well just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds, the president said. Gutierrez said those networks have been giving all Republican candidate mentions of immigration major play. The problem for them is everybodys watching, he said. The Republican debates have shown that there is absolutely no space for us there. The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action and the Service Employees International Union are already airing Spanish-language radio ads pointing out that Romneys own Spanish-language ads in Florida ignore his alliance with Kobach and his opposition to the DREAM act. National polls of Latinos suggest Obamas approval rating has eroded somewhat over the past year, but he maintains commanding leads over his most likely Republican rivals. Obama leads Romney, 67 percent to 25 percent, and Gingrich, 70 percent to 22 percent, in a Univision/ABC News poll out last week. Still, any dip in Latino support from 2008 could hurt Obamas reelection chances. Democrats have to be wary that interest of their voters is not as high as in 08, said

Terry Madonna, a pollster and public affairs professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. They need to have a fairly substantial turnout among minority groups. That makes niche marketing all the more important. Consultants say the Obama campaign is well-positioned to use the Latino media to deliver a customized message to Hispanics but officials need to be cautious that those messages dont turn off other voters. Its a very fine dance with targeting, said GOP new-media strategist Patrick Ruffini. The essential political risk has been growing with the ability to do it. Some Republican lawmakers already are noticing and attacking Obamas executive actions on immigration. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the presidents moves amount to a back-door amnesty that ignores immigration laws. The Obama administration has a pattern of abusing administrative authority to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, Smith said in a statement. Unfortunately, the decisions made by President Obama seem to be more influenced by campaign politics and liberal constituencies rather than sound policy for the good of our country. Many of the recent policy changes were suggested in memos that Hispanic groups sent the White House in the first half of last year, though often Obama did not go as far as the groups sought. For its part, the White House denies that the immigration-related measures are timed to aid the president politically. The president has been outspoken in his commitment to fixing Americas broken immigration system. He believes Congress should work together to build a 21st century immigration system that meets our nations economic and security needs. But given the urgency of these challenges, we cant wait for Congress to act. Thats why he has made administrative improvements to make government work smarter and more effectively, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement. Few non-Latino voters describe immigration as the issue of greatest concern to them. However, a Gallup Poll taken this month showed only 28 percent of Americans satisfied with the current level of immigration. The low figure reflects both those who think immigration policies are too liberal and those who find them too harsh. Its an issue that has some emotional edge to it, which is why I think it does have the potential to be an issue that flares up, said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. Those who are most concerned about it now are Republicans, and obviously Obamas strategy is not aimed at winning them over. Measures like the DREAM Act generally poll well, but some Obama administration actions do run counter to overall public opinion. In recent months, the Justice Department has filed lawsuits against popular laws passed in Alabama, South Carolina and Utah that crack down on illegal immigrants. Arizonas challenge to an earlier administration suit against that states immigration-control law will be argued before the Supreme Court this spring.

Analysts say the greatest risk in Obamas we cant wait immigration strategy lies with swing voters in key states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, who might disagree with the policy and more dangerously view it as evidence that the president isnt focused on jobs and the economy. The Republican nominee, whoever that may be, will be cognizant of this to see if there are ways of making this an issue, Newport predicted. Immigration reform is a major issue uniquely with Latinos, Democratic pollster Mark Penn said. Candidates are going to want to get their comprehensive immigration reform position out to the Latinos and probably want to downplay it to the rest. It is important, though, to not be inconsistent in that message or theyll quickly find themselves in a bind. While Obama described the recent immigration changes to Univision as part of his we cant wait agenda, he did not make a speech or hold an event about them as he did for some other parts of the campaign aimed at congressional inaction. Schultz said Obama has repeatedly called for elevating this issue, [and] we welcome as much coverage from across the media spectrum as possible. When a reporter noted to Gutierrez that many of the new immigration initiatives dont generate much attention in the English-language press, he interjected, with a laugh: You think on purpose, maybe? He said he still detects a skittishness among Obamas advisers about putting immigration issues front and center with a general audience. Do I think theres some, It would be nice if we could only communicate with Latinos? Yeah, theres some of that, he said. I understand some of the cynicism that can come with it. Im just hardpressed to have a problem with it.