Right off the bat, Marrero asks Whitman about the boogeyman himself, Pete Wilson, who is the chairman of her campaign and sort of dodges the negative connotation that so many in the Latino community have towards Mr. Wilson and then talks about her Latino coalition that she has had in her campaign.

Whitman also talks about her plan to address illegal immigration, which is pretty much enforcement heavy, and she has rather consistently played the part of being “tough on immigration.”  However, when the discussion turns to educating undocumented youth at the post secondary level, Whitman says its probably not ok to have them attending California public universities. Let’s make it clear that California’s AB 540 does not give undocumented students state or federal aid, but what it does do is give these motivated young people an exemption from having to pay nonresident tuition if they have attended high school in the state for three or more years. By the time many of these young adults reach college, the state has already invested in them at the K-12 level. Does it make sense to deny them the opportunity to educate themselves especially when President Obama has signaled that he doesn’t favor mass deportations?

I was able to speak with Lizbeth Mateo, one of the undocumented young adults who graduated from California State University, Northridge, and who is involved in the DREAM Act movement for her reaction to Whitman’s efforts in reaching out to the Latino community, especially in light of her new commercials featuring Latino school children. And Mateo offered this:

“In California, we have AB 540, which has been great for giving college opportunities for undocumented youth. With that policy, if you can afford it, go for it. Meg Whitman is playing politics and trying to get the Latino vote and don’t know how she intends for Latino kids to go become doctors and professionals. Approximately 40% of undocumented youth are from CA and a big majority of those are Latinos. Whitman is trying to get our votes and the sympathy of our community, but it isn’t going to work. We learned a lesson that we cannot trust the words of the politicians. She really hasn’t done anything for the Latino community, and she hasn’t even made the argument that she really cares.”

I sense that Whitman is going to have a hard time reaching the Latino community despite the fancy ads because of the feelings similar to those expressed by Lizbeth Mateo. At a time when Latino school children (both documented and undocumented) are struggling to even get into college, does sending a message that some are unwelcome in the state’s higher education institutions encourage those striving for a better future in the K-12 system in California? Children don’t readily distinguish between those who are documented and those who aren’t, but they are motivated by their peers and those who chose to study and learn as much as they are impacted by negative influences.

Note that on the Amigos de Carly site, there isn’t any mention of the Arizona law or more broad immigration policies on the front page, but she has suggested that we don’t need comprehensive immigration reform while insinuating that the federal government is not devoting enough resources to securing the border. As Andrea Nill at ThinkProgress points out, the Obama administration has actually spent more on immigration enforcement and border security than previous administrations.

In my view, Fiorina’s Latino outreach website reminds me of Meg Whitman’s without the fancy youtubes. It’s more hypocrisy and pandering while leaving out a lot of the rhetoric that has come out about immigration during this election cycle. It would be one thing to appear more candid with the Spanish speaking community about supporting the Arizona law and not wanting to pursue comprehensive immigration reform, but instead Fiorina makes a calculated decision to not mention this on the seguridad pública section of the Spanish website.

I also noticed that whoever wrote the seguridad pública section for Fiorina spelled marijuana with a “g” (mariguana), which I had never seen. I do know that marihuana is an alternate spelling. As expected, Fiorina doesn’t think it should be legalized, but I have a feeling that the majority of Californians think otherwise.

What do you think about Amigos de Carly?

And Whitman conveniently leaves out any mention of immigration, pathways to citizenship or the boogeyman himself, former California Governor Pete Wilson, who serves as a chairman in her campaign and who was a big supporter of Prop 187, which Whitman is opposed to in addition to the new Arizona immigration law. Immigration became a focal point for Whitman in the primaries in battling Steve Poizner but is noticeably absent from these new ads. This particular ad is completely in Spanish:

These ads show that Whitman knows that she cannot become Governor of California without the Latino vote. Last week the Los Angeles Times reported the following from a GOP strategist:

“Unless she gets over one-third of the Latino vote, I don’t care how much she spends, she’s not going to win,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican consultant who publishes the California Target Book. “She was pushed further to the right on that issue than she wanted to go, but the one key thing she remained steadfast on, even though she whispered it during the primary, was that she opposed the Arizona law.”

While Whitman is opposed to the Arizona law and Prop 187, she does not come out very positively for comprehensive immigration reform or even incremental steps to legalize people such as the DREAM Act. In my view, these ads are obvious panders to the Latino community. But they are well done, and Jerry Brown cannot underestimate Whitman’s ability to generate polished messages like these.

What are you thoughts? Are you convinced by these ads and should someone who wants to “enforce English immersion” even make bilingual ads?

Joe Arpaio’s controversial immigration enforcement tactics have been well documented. Sheriff Joe has been facing federal investigations into abuse of power and other civil rights violations in his efforts to reign in undocumented immigrants in Maricopa County, Arizona.

In endorsing Poizner over Whitman, Arpaio is sealing Mr. Poizner’s fate as a loser in the GOP race for California governor. The NY Times has a good piece about how crazy the immigration debate has become for the GOP in the California governor’s race and how the heated rhetoric does not do the party any favors in the Golden State:

““There’s a difference between talking about a problem and trying to exploit the problem as a wedge issue to try to get scared white voters,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican analyst here. “I’m not speaking as a lone wolf on this in the Republican Party. It’s concerning a lot of us.”

Hispanics are becoming increasingly influential in California politics. One in six voters this November is expected to be Hispanic — a proportion that is likely to grow in coming years — and Southern California has been at the forefront of efforts to boycott Arizona for enacting tough anti-immigrant legislation in late April.”

One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie quotes from Terminator 2 sums up how I think the majority of Latino voters and other Californians feel about Poizner  – “Hasta la vista baby!” Even the Governator does not support Arizona’s new immigration law, and I could not readily envision Schwarzenegger courting the Bull Connor of our Time. Way to go Poizner, not only have you isolated yourself in courting the crazy, you have made it more difficult for your party to make gains with Latino and other ethnic voters.

I was listening to a local Spanish-talk radio program, and the caller argued for why SB 1070 might be good. He argued that the federal government deducted $287 from his paycheck, for almost ten years now, but that he will never see a dime of that. His argument was that SB 1070 might propel the Congress and the White House to initiate comprehensive immigration reform, and therefore, he might in the future begin to see the fruit of his labor.

Americans, by nature, whether documented or undocumented have interests and we play to those. Clearly, Latinos aren’t going anywhere. We’ve purchased (or rented) into the American dream, including buying homes, cars/big pickups, groceries, technology, and sending our kids to American colleges. Whether this gentlemen’s predictions are right is for another column, but I do know SB 1070 has created a hornets nest of discussions on TV, radio and the internet. My fellow Chair and former Vice Chairman wrote “The Two Arizonas” in the state’s largest-circulated newspaper, and they were asked by an OregonLive.com commenter to show their green card.

Massive mobilizations have been and continue to be organized using radio, TV, social media networks, email campaigns and text messages. We’ve seen these before, but what will be different? How will these mobilizations using offline or online methods curtail or exponentially grow SB 1070s across the country? Already, about a dozen other states are considering similar legislation, including Utah, Georgia, Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska. There’s a sentiment by undocumented immigrants alike: SB 1070 is the clearest example that immigrants are welcome to rent and buy in America, pay federal and sales taxes, but you’re not allowed to become a true American citizen. How many more SB 1070s will it take for the Congress to act? And more pointedly, what will it take for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to taken seriously in this debate? The right and wrongs of SB 1070 did not begin in Arizona or neo-nazi marches that ferment the Grand Old Party (GOP). They began when Latinos and Americans alike failed to get involved in the democratic process before the historic signature signing that created this discussion.

Prakash Khatri, an attorney and the former Citizenship and Immigration Ombudsman in the Department of Homeland Security in the previous administration, recently sent out a press release explaining that Mexican immigrant visa applicants would have to wait 131 years ‘in line’ to immigrate to the United States. And this hypothetical scenario is one in which the visa applicant has a US citizen relative sponsoring him or her. Should the relative pass away during this time, the applicant’s place in line becomes void and he has to start again. In what imaginary world do people live to be 131 years?

In essence, current policy encourages illegal immigration because ‘who is willing to wait in line for two lifetimes?’, especially when families are broken up because of immigration status. The upshot is that Khatri suggests that any immigration reform make family reunification a goal especially with regards to US families with relatives in Mexico. The current arrangement is unjust and unworkable. And furthermore, nationality based immigration quotas should be eliminated. Because of the existing quota system, immediate relatives of US citizens from other countries are able to legally immigrate to the US in about ten years, while people from Mexico with US citizen relatives have to wait two lifetimes.

For a politician to talk about this proverbial line without breaking down the reality of what it means to immigrants and their American family members is disingenuous in my view. But this ‘line’ is tossed around to the public, making it sound so easy to follow the current immigration policies. Just this week at the 5 de Mayo festivity at the White House, President Obama referred to ‘the line’, and we have heard California GOP candidate for governor, Meg Whitman, also mention ‘the line’ as well. It’s time for someone to have an honest discussion about what this ‘line’ means without being so flippant in mentioning it to the public.

Today President Obama came out with a stern warning about this new Arizona law.  Obama also recognized that inaction at the federal level on immigration leads to these kinds of laws at the state level and has pledged to have the Department of Justice look into the legality of this new policy.

The Arizona Hispanic Republicans also issued a statement condemning the new law and indicated that they will not support Janet Brewer this year. I thought that their statement was pretty well reasoned and thoughtful even in holding President Obama accountable for immigration reform. However, I would like to point out that the GOP in the Senate (Graham) has indicated after health care reform passed that they are not interested in immigration so I find it a little disingenuous to place the blame entirely on the President, especially when the GOP had the better half of the last decade to move on immigration reform and didn’t.

If you would like to take action against this new law in Arizona, I encourage you to check out the following websites:

Shame on Arizona with Presente.org.

America’s Voice Petition to Stop SB 1070.

Also check out the Alto Arizona PSA featuring Zack de la Rocha with some information about a rally this Sunday in Phoenix:

Edited to Add: I’m going to avoid going to Arizona and avoid patronizing businesses headquartered there to the best of my ability. Congressman Grijalva has already put his life on the line in suggesting a conventions boycott for the state.

Photo: Arizona Governor Janet Brewer’s official photo

Whitman addressed how the Republican Party has not done enough to reach out to Latinos and that she was working hard to involve Latinos in her campaign. Well, that’s fine and dandy, but it looks like Whitman hasn’t been including Latinos in her circle especially when she had a chance to hire them in the management of eBay when she was CEO. Now some may say that there aren’t enough qualified Latinos to work at a large technology company like eBay, but while our numbers in the technology and science fields may be small, Latino technology and management professionals do exist, especially in a state like California. An independent expenditure ad came out this week playing up Meg Whitman’s diversity and job creation for Latinos while she was at eBay, and I thought that it was a clever use of old mariachi that is typically used to pander to our community:

What are your thoughts? Could Whitman have found one or two Latino managers while at eBay or is her new foundlove for LA-TEE-NOZ just a campaign gimmick?

Regarding Meg Whitman’s piece, I thought that the first part was particularly interesting, most notably her expressed use of the words ‘divisive’ and ‘disrespectful’:

“Too often, the rhetoric surrounding this issue has been overly divisive and disrespectful to Latino American citizens. The country needs to have a thoughtful debate about how we stop the tide of illegal immigration that strains budgets and angers taxpayers. But the immigration debate must take place in a measured way that reflects our national aspirations toward tolerance, hope and opportunity.

As a Republican, I believe it’s important to both continue our rich tradition of protecting the rule of law while diligently reaching out to the millions of Latinos who share our values.

While I am a strong proponent of legal immigration, I am 100% opposed to granting amnesty to immigrants who entered the country illegally. It is the wrong policy for California, it is the wrong policy for America, and it is grossly unfair to those immigrants who have followed the law to obtain legal status.”

And I thought this portion about her expressed opposition to Proposition 187 was somewhat ironic given the prominence of former California Governor Pete Wilson in her campaign (remember that Wilson was a big proponent of this ballot initiative, which was eventually declared unconstitutional):

“I have been criticized for opposing Proposition 187, which was on the California ballot in 1994. It is true that I am opposed to cutting off public education and healthcare services to immigrant children. I do not believe that kids should be punished for the sins of their parents.”

As for Steve Poizner, I thought that this part was particularly telling:

“Above all, California has too many policies that reward illegal aliens and act like magnets, drawing them to and keeping them in our cities and communities. We have to change those policies.

Ten other states, including neighboring Arizona, have passed laws to cut taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal immigrants. We need such legislation too. In this time of fiscal crisis, we can’t afford to subsidize the presence of illegal aliens.

One taxpayer-funded benefit for illegal aliens that should be stopped is in-state tuition at our public colleges and universities. Today, California is one of just 10 states that allow illegal immigrants access to reduced college tuition at taxpayer expense.”

For Steve Poizner, the last paragraph made me immediately think, “Forget about it DREAM Activist students — this guy is not in your corner.” One of the reasons why California has in-state tuition for undocumented students is that many of these kids have been excelling in school despite the odds and did not have a choice in how they arrived here as small children. Furthermore, many of these young people no longer have connections to their homeland, as they have been living here in California for years.

And in my quick reading of both opinion pieces, I did notice that Poizner used the term ‘illegal alien‘ while Meg Whitman did not. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) has called this term, as well as ‘illegal immigrant’ dehumanizing. While I am not as offended by the term ‘illegal immigrant,’ I know that many in our community are, and if language is power and semantics make a difference, I think that both candidates would be wise to read the NAHJ statement on terminology.

In the end, I do think that Steve Poizner has dug himself a hole with the illegal immigration issue, and he is very unlikely to emerge from it as he is trailing so far behind in the polls. Even today’s LA Times has a pretty good piece explaining why more Californians are not taking the bait regarding illegal immigration, as many people have come to the realization that there are fewer immigrants coming to the country in this global economic downturn.

“70 percent say illegal immigrants should have a chance to keep their jobs and ‘eventually apply for legal status.’ Only 25 percent say they should be deported.”

Given these poll numbers, one might think that Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner would tread more carefully on the issue of immigration, both legal and illegal, because even in families where there are legal immigrants, there usually are some people or acquaintances who aren’t documented. And in a country with a backlog of immigrant visas, it becomes inevitable that some people overstay or become undocumented as circumstances that prompt people to work and put food on the table take over.

The fact of the matter is that immigration has actually slowed in California in recent years. Efforts by both the Bush and Obama administrations to beef up homeland security and the lack of funds of would-be immigrants in their home countries due to the global economic crisis have dramatically slowed down the number of people arriving here in the Golden State. Fox and Hounds, a California Business oriented blog, which does not appear to be a ‘liberal’ or ‘immigrant sympathizing’ blog, noted:

“Immigration into California has slowed in the past decade because of the poor economy, making immigrants less of a target. And California voters don’t believe the politicians will do anything about it anyway.”

Steve Poizner, who is trailing Meg Whitman, for the GOP gubernatorial nomination by nearly 50 points, has decided to dig in his heels with the illegal immigration issue and won’t let go, even though as governor it is highly unlikely that he would even begin to solve the problems that cause so many people to uproot from their homelands to make a living here in California. I have already noted the GOP’s ‘Tough Talk on Immigration’ in this blog post, but it seems to be boiling over. Candidate Poizner has released two new ads in recent days that focus on illegal immigration. In the first, he revives the Prop 187 issue (ballot initiative that was declared unconstitutional) and in the second, his campaign suggests that Meg Whitman is like President Obama on immigration. Check them out for yourself:

My thought is that Poizner is desperate and hasn’t read the memo that ‘illegal immigrant’ bashing doesn’t work in California. This is an act of desperation. In the second ad, he almost does Meg Whitman a favor by likening her to President Obama, who actually has been rather tough on immigration, but still has an approval rating of over 50% in the state. What are your thoughts? Do ads like Poizner’s resonate with you or not?