The importance of our candidates leaning in – aggressively – on immigration reform.

America's Voice ?@americasvoice (Immigration Advocacy)
Democrat @MartinOMalley Shows Leadership, Demonstrates New Politics of Immigration in 2016 in Reality-Based World. http://americasvoice.org/press_releases/democrat-martin-omalley-shows-leadership-demonstrates-new-politics-of-immigration-in-2016-in-the-reality-based-world/ … :

Washington, DC – While the Republican Party’s 2016 contenders are enmeshed in the anti-immigrant circus swirling around Donald Trump and advancing more immigration soundbites than solutions, the Democratic presidential contenders are leaning into immigration issues and advancing real solutions. The Trump storm will pass eventually, but the Democrats’ serious immigration policy discussion will remain durable – with big implications for Democrats’ hope to maximize the Latino vote in 2016.

Case in point: Martin O’Malley.

Yesterday, he issued a detailed immigration policy white paper that is a serious and thoughtful effort at shaping a national immigration policy that is both good for immigrants and good for America. Yesterday’s event and paper release is just the latest reminder that O’Malley is making immigration a central plank of his campaign.

O’Malley was joined this week at the annual NCLR conference by fellow candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (none of the Republican candidates bothered to show up), and each of the candidates forcefully denounced Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant comments and the anti-immigrant lurch of the GOP and outlined a pro-immigrant vision. For example, all three have now pledged to extend executive action to cover more groups of undocumented immigrants (such as parents of DACA recipients) should Republicans again block a permanent, legislative solution.

As we’ve pointed out in the past, recent election cycles have showed the importance of Democrats embracing exactly this “lean in” approach to immigration politics (read our May 2015 report for more). There’s no question that Latino voters’ share of the electorate has been growing and Latinos have been trending Democratic in recent years. But for Democratic candidates, winning a majority of Latino voters is not enough. They have two goals – to win the largest share of Latino votes possible and to and turn out the largest number of Latino voters available. And one way they can do so is by leaning in – aggressively – on immigration reform.

So far, so good. The Democratic contenders are not only drawing a sharp contrast with the Republican presidential contenders and appealing to Latino, Asian-American and immigrant voters for whom immigration reform is a priority, they are also connecting with the broad mainstream of American public opinion on the issue. Diehard anti-immigrant voters are a loud but not large component of the general electorate, and they are often overrepresented in Republican primary audiences (a majority of GOP voters are more pragmatic and pro-reform than many believe).


read: http://americasvoice.org/press_releases/democrat-martin-omalley-shows-leadership-demonstrates-new-politics-of-immigration-in-2016-in-the-reality-based-world/