The Hispanic Dilemma

The bad news for Hispanic-Americans is the entry into force of harsh laws against them, like that of Alabama, which requires, among other things, that public schools check whether their students and their parents are legal residents.

The good news is that other states see the value of Hispanic immigrants. Such is the case of California, whose Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has ratified the Dream Act, which awards public scholarships to undocumented university students.

The law also allows undocumented students to pay tuition at a special price, equivalent to that paid by Californians, while out-of-state students must pay a higher price.

The Republican Party rejects these kinds of laws, considering them a kind of amnesty. Furthermore, they argue that they are putting resources, financed by Americans, within reach of illegal immigrants.

They also say that the Dream Act is an incentive for other immigrants to enter the country illegally.

However, two Republican governors have passed similar laws in New Mexico and Texas. Texan Gov. Rick Perry’s backing of these pro-migrant laws has cost him steeply in his campaign for the nomination to the presidency, as we discussed in this space last week.

The issue is that for Hispanics, at the end of the day, there aren’t many in the elections that will to try to push through federal laws that favor them.

For whom should they vote or for whom should they not vote for in the 2012 elections? That is the dilemma for a group of voters which is described by analysts as crucial in the upcoming elections.

Attempting to punish Republicans for their lack of support does not make much sense when analyzing at the state level, where two of the three states that have supported the Dream Act are Republican. Above all, if we consider that even though Obama supports the aforementioned law, Congress rejected it last December due to five Democrats’ votes against it.

U.S. politicians know that the next president will only come to the White House if he gets 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.

This was the case in 2004 for Bush, who won 40 percent of the Latino vote. But even so, the Hispanic community did not receive any major reform that benefitted them.

It was also the case of Barack Obama, who in 2008 won 62 percent of Latino vote, the highest percentage behind Bill Clinton (72 percent)… although, once again, our compatriots north of the border did not gain anything with his presidency.

It appears that the Hispanic lobby efforts must focus on state efforts and on forgetting national ones. In California, Brown was elected governor last November 2010 with 63 percent of the Hispanic vote.

The state has 14 million Hispanics, more than one third of the population. And it is there, along with New Mexico and Texas (both Republican states) where the Hispanic community has seen some form of resolution to their needs.

So who to vote for on a national level? The answer is actually on a state level … at least, that is what current U.S. politics indicate.