By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Sen. Mel Martinez - Photo: The New York Times

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) announced Tuesday he will not be seeking reelection to a second term in 2010.

Coming after dismal results for his party among Hispanic voters both in Florida and nationwide, his decision bolsters the sense of a growing gulf between Latinos and the Republican Party.

Martinez “was seen as vulnerable in a state that has been tilting Democratic, particularly among Latinos,” The New York Times said. After decades of staunch Hispanic support for Republicans in Florida, this year 57 percent of them chose Democrat Barack Obama over John McCain.

“The GOP should find the Hispanic defection in Florida particularly troubling,” wrote Sun Sentinel columnist Kingsley Guy. “Historically, Republican presidential candidates have carried the Hispanic electorate, for years dominated by Cuban-Americans who supported the GOP’s tough-on-Castro policies. Attitudes are changing, however.” The main reason for the low level of Hispanic support, he added, was the virulent debate on immigration reform, which “soured Hispanic voters on the GOP.”

Paradoxically, despite having supported comprehensive reform of immigration laws, Martinez — a Cuban who arrived in the U.S. at age fifteen — appears to have been at least partly a victim of that souring.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Bishop Taylor (Photo: Catholic News Agency)

In his previous posting, as a priest in Oklahoma, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor was a fervent opponent of state laws state used to launched a crackdown on illegal immigration. Now, a few months after being named the head of the diocese of Little Rock, Ark., Taylor is again taking the lead on the issue.

In November, Taylor published his first pastoral letter since taking his new job. Titled “I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me: A Pastoral Letter on the Human Rights of Immigrants,” it equates the plight of undocumented immigrants to that of Joseph and Mary when they arrived in Bethlehem and asks Catholics to welcome newcomers rather than reject them. [You can download the letter here.]

“I believe that the major current issue about which American Catholics are most confused today has to do with immigration,” the bishop wrote in an introduction.

“The God of the Bible is a God of immigrants and the history of salvation unfolds largely in the context of immigration,” he added in the letter.

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It’s fitting that Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar grew up in Calexico, the California town whose name is a combination of California and Mexico.  As a leader of President-elect Barack Obama’s task force on immigration, Cuéllar can certainly use some transcultural sensitivity.

Cuéllar

Cuéllar, a law professor at Stanford University, has been named one of the co-heads of the Obama transition’s Immigration Policy Working Group.  The transition’s web site says he is in charge of “working on a plan to implement the President-elect’s commitments to fix the immigration system through legislative and executive actions that promote prosperity, enhance our security, strengthen families, and advance the rule of law.”

Cuéllar has called the current immigration situation in the U.S. “a humanitarian crisis that we’ve ignored” and one that deserves an appropriate response, Spanish wire Agencia EFE reported.

EFE interviewed pro-immigration reform activists, who said they were satisfied with the appointment. Cuéllar, reporter María Peña wrote, “is known for his pragmatism and sensitivity toward the subject and his appointment this week confirms … that the incoming administration is committed to comprehensive immigration reform.”

Clarissa Martinez de Castro of the National Council of La Raza, told Peña:

Cuéllar is a good choice and we think that this time reason will win out over the toxic rhetoric of groups that have tried to inject fear into the electorate about immigrants. He’s very pragmatic and, although the economy is the United States’ top priority at this time, we think that in the end people will recognize that sensible immigration policy also will be good for our economy.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

In their hands: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In a little-noticed interview last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) renewed pro-immigrant advocates’ hopes for comprehensive reform of the nation’s immigrations laws under the next administration.

Talking to the Gannett News Service, Reid said immigration reform will be passed because President-elect Barack Obama and his former rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) agree on the matter.

“On immigration, there’s been an agreement between Obama and McCain to move forward on that. …We’ll do that,” Reid said.

The reporter then asked whether there will be “as much of a fight on immigration as last time” in Congress. Reid answered,

We’ve got McCain and we’ve got a few others. I don’t expect much of a fight at all. Now health care is going to be difficult. That’s a very complicated issue. We debated at great length immigration. People understand the issues very well. We have not debated health care, so that’s going to take a lot more time to do.

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As Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano appears ready to become the first Democratic secretary of Homeland Security, pro- and anti-immigration observers are trying to decipher what her designation will mean for the future of immigration laws under President Barack Obama.

Napolitano, Spanish wire Agencia EFE remembered today, declared a state of emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border and was the first governor to ask for National Guard troops to be deployed to secure the border between the two countries. She has also vetoed tough immigration enforcement bills put forward by state Republicans and advocated measures like the prosecution of companies that hire undocumented workers. Overall she is seen as more of a hardliner on immigration than most Democrats.

Napolitano’s approach on immigration is fundamentally pragmatic, her friend and think tank founder Fred DuVal told the Christian Science Monitor, adding her philosophy is, “Drop the ideology and let’s talk about what we need to both make the border secure and the relationship with Mexico functional.”

“Napolitano is probably the closest the Democrats could get to an immigration hawk,” Mark Kirkorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank advocating low immigration rates, told reporter Matthew Bell of nationally-syndicated radio show The World. [You can hear Bell’s report here.]

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Colombian Pres. Alvaro Uribe (Photo: Colombian Presidency)

The phones have been busy at the Obama transition offices, and country code 57 — for Colombia — was on the receiving end of at least a couple of this week’s calls.

The number was dialed on behalf of both President-elect Barack Obama (yesterday) and Vice President-elect Joe Biden (Monday) to talk to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, by far the staunchest American ally in Latin America under President George W. Bush.

Obama also called Argentinean President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — they talked about Argentinean writers Borges and Cortázar — and her Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet, who invited him to visit Chile.

But Uribe has a much more serious matter to discuss with the U.S. administration, both the current and the incoming ones: the approval of a Free Trade Agreement that Colombians hope can take place in the lame-duck Congressional session.

Colombian media reported that Obama and Uribe talked for ten minutes. “The topics of conversation were not revealed, but it was a constructive dialogue,” a source told the leading newsweekly La Semana.

“The call from the Democrat Obama,” said El Tiempo, Colombia’s biggest newspaper, “is significant because this week, and until next Wednesday the U.S. Congress, under a Democratic majority, is in an extra session and the FTA is expected to be dealt with.”

The Colombian FTA has become a priority for the outgoing Bush administration — to the point that President Bush and Obama talked about it at their first meeting after the Nov. 4 election.

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By Pilar Marrero, La Opinión and FI2W reporter

On Election Day, Colorado became the first state to reject an initiative by the controversial Ward Connerly, one of the nation’s leading opponents of affirmative action.

In Arizona, voters decided not to pass Proposition 202, a state ballot initiative that would have imposed extreme penalties on business owners that hire undocumented immigrants.

Illegal immigration foe Lou Barletta lost in his bid for Congress.

Some politicians who are known for their anti-immigrant positions also came up short on Nov. 4: Lou Barletta, the famed mayor of Hazleton, Pa., lost his bid to become a congressman. His city is well known as the municipality that started the rush of local ordinances against undocumented immigrants.

This time, anti-immigrant and anti-minority proposals and candidates did not do as well as in previous elections. The reasons may vary: more Democratic voters, higher immigrant participation, more important or pressing issues, like the economy. It may also be that blaming immigrants for society’s ills is becoming a less effective political strategy.

Take what happened in congressional contests. Of 21 races for the Senate and the House where the issue of immigration was brought up as a problem (usually by the Republican candidate), 19 were won by the more moderate politician, usually a Democrat . The “enforcement only” crowd didn’t have too many successes.

“It’s clear that the Republican strategy to use immigration as a wedge issue turned into a spectacular failure this year,” claims a report by NDN, an organization that promotes moderate immigration policies within the Democratic Party.

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