Not only does Sen. John McCain present his stance on immigration differently when talking to Spanish-language media (as we showed yesterday.)

So do the Obamas.

A few days ago, Michelle Obama was interviewed by one of the top Spanish-language radio hosts in the country, Eddie Piolín Sotelo, on his Piolín en la mañana show. Mrs. Obama had this to tell Sotelo about immigration reform:

This will be at the top of his agenda, you know, along with ending this war in Iraq responsibly.

At another point Mrs. Obama said, “We need the Latino community and we’re gonna do everything in our power,” to attract their votes.

But going back to Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC a couple of weeks ago, one needs to look hard in the transcript to find that little nugget he dedicated to the issue of immigration.

“Passions may fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.”

He referred to immigration as lowering American salaries, which clearly isn’t the way most Latinos see the issue. And then he didn’t address so many aspects of the issue. What about the undocumented people already here? What about the undocumented students who want to go to college? Driver’s licenses? The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids that have scared people across the country?

This week, as John McCain had done, Obama sat down for an interview with a Univision anchor; this time it was María Elena Salinas. (We haven’t found an English transcript of the original conversation, so this is our re-translation of the Spanish translation.)

Salinas asked Obama whether he would call for a stop to immigration enforcement raids, to which he replied that he considers the raids a publicity trick to try to shift people’s attention from the lack of immigration reform. Obama added that what is needed is comprehensive reform which provides strong border security and which punishes employers who take advantage of undocumented workers.

Again, nothing to write Mexico or El Salvador about. Many Latino voters may still be waiting to hear the candidates reconcile their statements to Spanish-language media with their speeches and comments to English-language audiences.

Just after the Republican National Convention ended, the party’s nominee Sen. John McCain sat down for an interview with a major American network. It wasn’t ABC, NBC or CBS: he was interviewed by Jorge Ramos, Univision‘s lead anchor and the host of the show Al Punto which focuses on politics. The network’s web site summed up the interview saying McCain, “skirted questions about his vote in favor of the border wall.”

In fact, McCain seemed to tell Ramos he did not vote for construction of the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. (He did not finish the sentence twice, however.) [This video has been removed from YouTube.]
Here’s a transcript of the original exchange in English, as published by Univision:

Ramos: You voted for the construction of the wall between Mexico and the United States. However, the Mexican Government has just confirmed that every year, at least half a million Mexicans come to the United States. How exactly are you planning to secure that border? Every single minute there is an immigrant coming into the United States illegally.

McCain: I didn’t vote for, I am not sure what you are talking about, but we can secure…

Ramos: …about 700 miles.

McCain: I say we can secure our borders with walls and/or fences in urban areas, and then virtual fences, vehicle barriers

Ramos: But, you did vote for the wall.

McCain: I didn’t vote for an…, I don’t know what you are exactly, what you are referring to. What my plan was, and what our proposal was, that we secure our borders, and we can secure it, not necessarily with walls and fences. Although that is important in populated areas, in the deserts of Arizona vehicle barriers, cameras, and sensors, all of those things, can be used.

Did McCain vote for the wall or not?

On Sept. 28, 2006, when the Secure Fence Act was passed that approved the construction of the border barrier, McCain voted “Yea,” Senate records show.

After that, there were several votes related to appropriations for the project, but it appears that McCain did not vote again on the matter. (Here’s Project Vote Smart’s compilation of recent McCain votes on immigration-related bills.)

Once he began campaigning for the presidency, McCain’s stance on immigration shifted away from his co-sponsorship of comprehensive immigration reform with Sen. Ted Kennedy. Early this year, in a Meet The Press interview with the late Tim Russert he practically gave up on that effort. When Russert asked him whether he would sign such a bill into law as President, McCain said, “it isn’t gonna come, it isn’t gonna come. The lesson is, they want the border secured first.”

NPR’s Jennifer Ludden mapped McCain’s trajectory on the issue in this story last June: his position now is that, as President, he would have governors certify that the border is secure before taking other immigration-related measures.

* * *

By the way, how’s that fence doing?

Not so well, The Washington Post reported this week: it’s unlikely that it will be completed on schedule, and construction costs are surging.

Barring action by Congress, “we’re out of money and operations will stop,” border protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham told the House Homeland Security Committee.

Last week, as many of the nation’s Latino Democratic operatives and immigrant rights activists expressed high hopes in Denver for the future of comprehensive immigration reform, the reality of the nation’s current immigration policy was vividly displayed in tiny Laurelton, Mississippi.

Nearly 600 workers were swept up by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a worksite raid at Howard Industries, an electrical parts manufacturer. The sweep in Laurel, population 18,000, made it the largest immigration raid in US history, eclipsing the raid earlier this summer in Postville, IA (click here to listen to this recent NPR radio update from Postville), which continues to be in the news.

The very day that federal immigration authorities arrested undocumented workers at Howard industries, the Obama campaign removed every mention of immigration reform from a convention speech by Bronx Rep. José Serrano, one of Congress’ most persistent advocates of comprehensive immigration reform.

Despite the high hopes of immigrant rights advocates and legislators that the next president will finally take on and win reforms to federal immigration laws, both McCain and Obama have been all but silent on the issue as the election approaches.

As recently as last year, both candidates supported legislative proposals that would have granted legal status to many of the nation’s roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants–but both start their policy statements today with the need to get tough on undocumented immigrants first.   The candidates have each, at times, supported proposals to strengthen the nation’s southern border fence and to penalize employers who hire undocumented workers. Such law-and-order strategies continue to appear in their platforms today.

On the policy pages of his website, Senator McCain highlights the nation’s notoriously porous southern border and states:

When we have achieved our border security goal, we must enact and implement the other parts of practical, fair and necessary immigration policy.

For his part, Senator Obama’s campaign website outlines his support for

a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, not violate the law, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.

Despite much-discussed efforts to mobilize Latino voters, Feet in 2 Worlds reporters covering the convention in Denver found few Democratic operatives willing to broach the subject of immigration policy, and then only in conversations far from the convention’s main stage, and usually in the context of encouraging Latino voters to support Senator Obama’s candidacy.

In fact, a form of détente has emerged: both presidential campaigns appear to have decided to broach the immigration subject only in smaller discussions with tailored audiences, such as Latino civil rights activists (at the annual conferences of the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens), or wealthy Silicon Valley campaign donors.

A FOX News producer detailed a fractious debate within the Republican Party as it tried to finalize its final immigration policy platform last week before its own convention. She wrote that some delegates wanted platform language that rejected all efforts at “comprehensive immigration reform,” because they considered the phrase “a code word for amnesty.”

The recently-released GOP platform devotes a whole one and half pages to immigration policy with a focus on border security, a rejection of “amnesty” and “en masse legalizations,” and a call for English to be the official language of the US. For its part, the Democratic Party platform promises, “tough, practical, and humane immigration reform in the first year of the next administration.” The document also underlines the need to, “require undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.” Notably, both parties start their platforms by stressing the need for expanded border enforcement.

Obama himself made one mention of immigration policy during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last Thursday, but without any prescriptions for change:

Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

Despite the high hopes, the current face of the issue is rooted in the Bush administration’s enforcement-only approach. In addition to a series of high-profile, large-scale work site immigration raids, the other standout federal program this year was ‘Operation Scheduled Departure.’ The short-lived effort, which sought to encourage undocumented immigrants to deport themselves, was quietly laid to rest at the end of August after a dismal three-week pilot phase. Only eight immigrants volunteered to return to their home countries through the program.

In Postville, IA, immigrant workers were detained, charged and tried in a matter of days. A majority of the 289 workers swept up in Postville’s raid were put into fast-track deportation proceedings and flown back to their home countries within a month of the raid.

Mississippi immigrant rights advocates, including the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA), reported signs of immigration agents preparing for a large-scale raid in Laurel over the weekend, establishing roadblocks at Wal-Mart parking lots and renting most of the hotel rooms in the small town. MIRA also reported possible preparations for another raid at the Southern Hens poultry plant in Mossell, MS, where ICE agents were reportedly preparing to put the plant under lockdown.

In the midst of an increased federal focus on apprehending undocumented immigrants, many undocumented immigrants reportedly were reluctant to evacuate from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and opted to stay behind and ride out the recent Hurricane Gustav. Despite assurances from the Department of Homeland Security to the contrary, immigrants were worried federal agents would institute immigration documentation checks on the buses provided to evacuate residents, according to the New Orleans Worker’s Center for Racial Justice.

Mississippi legislators recently passed a new state law that makes it a felony for businesses to employ undocumented immigrants. It is part of a new wave of state-based immigration laws dubbed ‘employer sanctions’ and enacted in states with large immigrant populations. These laws have been decried by business owners, immigrant advocates, and workers’ rights activists as impractical, unfair, and likely to drive immigrant workers further into an underground economy.

In a nation that is increasingly black and brown, and in an election year when one of the major party presidential nominees is the child of an African immigrant, there is still no clarity about what the next administration might do to transform federal immigration law.

Offering a glimpse of Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field tomorrow in Denver, a top campaign official said Obama will announce an unprecedented effort to enroll new voters before the November election. Obama’s Latino Outreach Director, Temo Figueroa told Feet in 2 Worlds, “You’re going to be hearing tomorrow from Barack Obama the kick-off of the largest voter registration drive ever in a presidential campaign.”

Figueroa’s remarks followed a presentation to the Hispanic Caucus this morning in Denver where he characterized the resources the campaign will put into the program as, “mind boggling.”

[audio:http://www.xrew.com/joceimgs/FI2W/fi2w_temo2_speech.mp3]

“Tomorrow (in his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination) you are going to hear Sen. Barack Obama talk about voter registration and he’s going to mention some numbers that we’re going to be spending on voter registration through the month of September that will be mind boggling. That’s going to be a focus of his speech at Invesco,” Figueroa promised.

Figueroa also told FI2W that unlike past elections, the campaign will not “contract out” the job of registering voters.

“But we’re doing it in-house. We’re doing it with our own volunteers, with our own staff,” he said.

“We’re already making a dent,” he said. “The numbers are already showing what we’re doing in Virginia, what we’re doing in New Mexico, what we’re doing in Colorado and Nevada. It’s amazing.”

[audio:http://www.xrew.com/joceimgs/FI2W/fi2w_temo1_interview.mp3]

The Obama campaign’s emphasis on voter registration started even before Obama had won the primaries. On May 10th the campaign launched Vote for Change, a 50-state voter registration drive which was intended to lay the groundwork for a general election campaign.

“I believe the only way Barack Obama can win is we have to play in states we normally, as Democrats, never played in, and we have to bring new people in,” Figueroa said.

While Obama’s voter registration drive will target Americans all of backgrounds, the Obama campaign has previously pledged 20 million dollars on Latino outreach efforts including voter registration and paid media. The campaign has 400 Latino organizers and is training hundreds of volunteers to increase turnout among Latinos in key battleground states. In New Mexico alone, where an estimated 40,000 registered Latino voters didn’t got to the polls in 2004, Figueroa said the campaign has 29 field offices staffed by Latinos.

Stressing the point to the delegates at the Hispanic Caucus, Figueroa gave a Power Point presentation – complete with slides, maps and electoral math – that showed that Latinos can even make a difference in battleground states like Virginia if turnout is driven up just among currently registered voters. But he stressed repeatedly that even in Virginia there is a large group of unregistered Latinos that the campaign hopes to tap.

Acknowledging that many Latinos are still not familiar with Obama, Figueroa told the crowd that starting next week the campaign will go on air with Spanish-language ads in New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and Colorado to present Obama’s message and biography to Latino voters.

Feet in 2 Worlds reporters are providing unique immigrant perspectives on the presidential campaigns with daily appearances on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show this week from the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Today, Feet in 2 World’s Pilar Marrero, political editor and columnist for Los Angeles’ La Opinión newspaper, analyzed the McCain and Obama campaigns’ efforts to court Latino voters.  Click here to hear Pilar’s take on the most recent Latino voter poll, the latest controversy over Latino elected officials’ candidate endorsements, and the impact of the largest-scale Spanish-language outreach effort in election history.

Tomorrow, Ewa-Kern-Jedrychowska, reporter for New York-based Polish-language newspaper Nowy-Dziennik and Feet in 2 Worlds contributor, will discuss Polish-American voters’ attitudes and policy priorities. Tune in to The Brian Lehrer Show on FM 93.9, AM 820 or www.WNYC.org at 10:40 am EST to hear Ewa. 

Yesterday, our reporter Aswini Anburajan dissected Indian-American political donors, their support for the proposed India-US nuclear deal, and the emerging political partnership between the American Jewish Committee and Indian-American campaign donors that was showcased at a Denver breakfast forum. Click here to listen to Aswini’s talk with Brian Lehrer.

Feet in 2 Worlds convention coverage is part of our collaboration with New York Community Media Alliance.

Editor’s note: WNYC’s website and streaming capabilities are set up slightly differently during the conventions.  In order to listen to Pilar and Aswini’s interviews you must first download the first hour of Brian’s show, then fast forward to around 40 minutes past the hour (or just listen to the entire hour of excellent reporting and conversation!).

In recognition that the real deal-making at the party conventions happens not in the spotlight of primetime but in the backrooms off the convention hall, a morning breakfast yesterday between Indian and Jewish Americans underscored the role both groups hope to play in helping finalize the U.S-India civil nuclear power deal in the coming months.

Arranged by the American Jewish Committee, the breakfast on “Advancing Indian-Jewish relations” focused heavily on the importance of passing the civil nuclear deal not just for the betterment of India’s future, but also for Israel’s.

Allowing India to have a nuclear program would ensure that, “Israel doesn’t stand alone with a bunch of bad guys without having a good guy in the mix,” said Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY). “Israel gets cover,” Ackerman said, acknowledging the widespread belief that Israel has a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

While the U.S.-India nuclear agreement is ostensibly meant to ease the import of material needed for generating power, India’s nuclear weapons program has caused the international community to lump the country in with Iran and North Korea for violating or sidestepping international non-proliferation agreements. But Ackerman and representatives from the Indian and Israeli consulate generals said the international community should make an exception for the world’s largest democracy.

Jewish support for the Indian nuclear energy deal has been critical in helping to get it passed by Congress, according to Indian fundraisers and political staffers at the breakfast.

Swadesh Chatterjee, a longtime Indian American fundraiser at the breakfast who has lobbied hard for the nuclear deal, said that the Indian community lacked the legislative clout to lobby for the deal and that support from the Jewish community and Israel supporters had been “critical.”

Ackerman pledged that Jewish politicians and the community as a whole would continue to push for the passage of the civil nuclear deal.

The tough talk on foreign policy was cushioned by stressing perceived cultural similarities between the two groups. Participants repeatedly referred to the notion that Indians and Jews in the United States form a natural alliance and share an emphasis on family, a strong work ethic and a commitment to education.

“We recognize we have two mothers,” Ackerman said of the allegiance that both groups felt for their respective homelands.

Ackerman said that it appeared unlikely the civil nuclear deal will pass before Congress adjourns on September 26^th despite Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice’s statement that it is a policy priority. The deal has to be ratified by the 45-nation nuclear supplier group before it comes back to Congress for a final vote. Ackerman warned that they couldn’t allow the bill to get, “amended to death,” in Congress. He also said that despite the support that both presidential candidates have expressed for the deal, neither candidate would be likely to sign it without re-visiting the agreement.

Polish Americans and Polish immigrants living in the US offered a variety of reactions to the missile shield agreement signed this week by the US and Poland. According to US officials the 10 interceptor missiles to be placed on Polish soil are intended to protect the US and its allies from an attack by a rogue state such as Iran.

As part of the deal the Bush administration also agreed to the placement in Poland of a Patriot missile battery – a short-range missile system that theoretically could be used in case of Russia’s attack. Moreover, as the New York Times reported, the deal came with a promise that, “at least temporarily American soldiers would staff air sites in Poland oriented towards Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO, of which Poland is a member.” The agreement came soon after Russia invaded Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, and a close American ally.

The move infuriated Russia. Shortly after the deal was announced a top Russian general, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said that Poland risks a military attack, possibly even nuclear, for agreeing to host a US missile defense system on its territory. “Such targets are destroyed as a first priority,” he warned.

It sounded all too familiar to Poles, who, still remembering the times when their country was a Soviet satellite, almost felt a gust of the Cold War era.

(more…)

“Millions of Latino voters…are being targeted like never before on the Web, in radio, television and print. Campaigns are hiring strategists, media consultants and recruiting Latinos for the ground war.”

Eleven million Latinos are expected to vote in this year’s presidential election (60% more than in the 2004 elections), and 3 million of them are young voters.

Many media outlets have focused on the emerging Latino vote; but most news coverage has lumped Latino voters of all ages and types together into one category.

In her radio feature that aired on August 18 on WNYC in New York, Feet in 2 Worlds journalist Martina Guzmán examines how the Presidential campaigns are increasingly tailoring their outreach to subsets of Latino voters: a large and diverse electorate that has displayed a spectrum of responses to the candidates’ multi-million dollar ad campaigns.

The Obama campaign has been heavily targeting young Latinos through social networking sites like MiGente – the Latino equivalent of FaceBook. One of the most popular links is a to a video called Podemos Con Obama.  According to the William C. Velasquez institute, 50 thousand young eligible Latinos turn 18 every month, and from 2000 to 2004 Latino youth turnout increased by 13 percent.

Although the numbers are high, some consultants argue that the youth vote is unreliable. “This country is changing and young Latino voters are very excited but historically we don’t know if they turnout,” said Republican strategists Leslie Sanchez. Meanwhile the McCain campaign is reaching out to other segments of the Hispanic community such as Latino military families. They are running a television ad called God’s Children in Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. That ad pays homage to Latino veterans and soldiers who are currently fighting in Iraq.

Guzmán reports on how the presidential candidates are crafting sophisticated messaging toward Latinos in the 2008 presidential election. Her story aired this morning during Morning Edition on WNYC, New York Public Radio. Click here to listen online.