Earlier during a telephone press conference, Dolores Huerta shared these prepared remarks:
The Latino community faces a key choice in this election. The reason is that these are not ordinary days. Our politicians are not debating ordinary policies.
The Republican field would be disastrous for the priorities of Latinos. The GOP candidates would slash funding for education, Medicare and Social Security. They oppose the DREAM Act and a path to citizenship for immigrants. They are wrong across the board on the values that have defined American tradition for generations.
Mitt Romney’s policies would have us all packing our bags and going home. He wants to make things so difficult for our families that we self-deport. But what he doesn’t understand is that we are home.
Is that the kind of rhetoric we want from someone leading our country?
The problem is that at some point Mitt Romney decided it was more important to associate with extreme elements of the Tea Party. He surrounds himself with the people who would help Wall Street write its own rules, block critical help to middle class Americans and stand in the way of the immigration reforms that have become synonymous with the American way of life for hundreds of years.
Let’s talk about one close friend of Romney’s – Kris Kobach. He is the godfather of the Alabama and Arizona anti-immigrant laws, but Mitt Romney is proud to have his endorsement. They talk about undocumented immigration not as the story of many families in our community, but as a plague – even though the story of immigration in this country has defined the history and traditions of so many American families.
I was just in Arizona last week – I went to show my support for the DREAM Act students who have bravely decided to step forward and make it clear to Mitt Romney that they will not be scared while he proposes laws that would inject fear into families and communities nationwide.
Let’s not forget who these kids are. They came here as children. They grew up here. This is their country. Some of them don’t even speak the language of the countries where they were born.
They are smart kids who care about the future of this country and will organize to make their voices heard. They came out because they want the opportunity they deserve – they want to be the next generation of doctors, teachers, researcher and engineers. They just want a chance.
But now it is clearer than ever: If Mitt Romney were president, he would let the Kobach-style immigration laws at the state level run wild and loose, and now we know that this is his national model. He would encourage measures that threaten to profile our children and stand in the way of critical support for middle class families like health care, Social Security and education. Is that what we want for our country, for our families?
And now Jan Brewer, Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant governor, has endorsed Mitt Romney.
It’s not a surprising pick for Governor Brewer, considering Romney would be the most extreme presidential nominee of our time on the values that middle class Americans and Latinos hold most dear and are the most fundamental to the American traditions that have defined our country for generations.
That’s not how a friend of the Latino community behaves. That’s not how an American who values this country’s traditions behaves. Those are the actions of a candidate who is locked into the most far-right positions on immigration, and whose policies would amount to an attack on our communities. Someone who would say anything to get elected.
Mitt Romney promised to veto the DREAM Act. Does he even know what the DREAM Act does? The DREAM Act, in case he doesn’t know, is about helping college students who came here through no fault of their own and know no other home. The DREAM Act is about our children becoming doctors, teachers, nurses and professors. It’s about giving an opportunity to our military veterans to enjoy the benefits of the country they have fought so hard to defend.
So when Romney tells our kids he would veto the DREAM Act, that may play well with the Tea Party, but it’s a slap in the face to our community and stomps on the very dreams that have defined the American dream.
Romney thinks DREAM Act supporters want a “handout.” That’s a huge insult. And when that’s the kind of rhetoric that Republicans are pushing, he will only continue to move to the right if he is elected President.
We know Romney has cornered himself so far to the right that there’s just no way he’ll come back from that extreme position and adopt sensible policies.
So it’s up to Latino voters. It’s up to us to step forward and let Mitt Romney know: we’re not going anywhere. And all we need is a chance. Mitt Romney may say he’ll veto the DREAM Act. But in November, Latinos will veto Romney. And we’ll do it through the ballot box.
