Washington, D.C.– Today, Angela Maria Kelley, VP for Immigration Policy and Advocacy at CAP, released the following statement in reaction to the midterm elections:
Latino voters flexed their growing muscle yesterday and proved themselves decisive in shaping the balance of power in the Senate in an election season marked by the shameful scape-goating of immigrants.
Most notably, Latinos turned out in high numbers and voted somewhere between a two-to-one and a three-to-one margin for Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who championed pragmatic solutions to national immigration issues. Hispanic voters punished Senator Reid’s opponent and were offended by that campaign’s ethnically charged commercials which featured menacing images of dark-skinned people.
Latino voters were the reason that Democrats maintained control of the Senate by providing overwhelming support for Reid and other senators in high Latino states such as Sens. Barbara Boxer in California and Michael Bennet in Colorado.
Nevadans’ rejection of the demonization of an active Latino electorate sends a strong message to conservatives who have taken control of the House and are eyeing myopic and mean-spirited deportation-only policies. House leaders should realize the bigger political payoff is producing a broader plan to fix the broken immigration system instead of playing to the politics of fear.
That Election Day message also came through in other races where voters rejected the gubernatorial bids of Meg Whitman and Tom Tancredo, the long-time leader of the anti-immigrant movement.
With the election behind us it is now time for the House to work with the Senate to find solutions to our nation’s most critical issues, including immigration.
For more information please refer to: Too Many to Ignore: The Latino Vote in 2010 and Beyond
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