January 28, 2008

Barack Obama reiterates support for driver's licenses for illegal aliens (Carolyn Lochhead)

Carolyn Lochhead of the San Francisco Chronicle offers this:

Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver's licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.

She's actually right about most of that, but she forgot to include New York governor Eliot Spitzer in her list of casualties. It also isn't clear from her article who exactly is renewing Obama's support for those who've broken our laws; no quotes from Obama or an official spokesman are provided.

It's also not entirely true that "Latinos... want them". Latinos who are here legally can already get them. As for those who put their race ahead of the best interests of their country, see page 14 of the 2007 Pew Hispanic Survey (pewhispanic.org/files/reports/84.pdf). Respondents were asked whether there should be a check for immigration status before granting a license. 85% of non-Hispanics said yes, as did 40% of all Hispanics. A majority of native-born Hispanics (56%) said yes, but a majority of foreign-born Hispanics (66%) said no. Whether any of the latter included illegal aliens isn't clear.

So, just as long as Obama goes for the foreign-born Hispanics (perhaps including illegal aliens), he's got it made. It's only the other 75%+ of American citizens he needs to worry about.

The article also quotes Gil Cedillo and former Clinton administration official Federico Pena, who's now a supporter of Obama. In 2006 he led a group that tried to thwart a Proposition 187-style measure in Colorado and the spokeswoman for that group was the vile Polly Baca, meaning that Pena is linked at least tangentially linked into the Western Union gravy train.

More on Obama's immigration issues here.

Posted to Immigration_dls at January 28, 2008 01:58 PM