REP. KAPTUR — THE LATINO COMMUNITY REMEMBERS THAT YOU TURNED YOUR BACK ON THE DREAM ACT
by Cesar Vargas | March 5, 2012
Undocumented youth from around the country and in Ohio will be sending a message in the streets and the polls to vote down Representative Marcy Kaptur for turning her back on us. This election cycle, Ohio’s District 9 will have two incumbents running for representative. Dennis Kucinich, the incumbent whose district was divided amongst several other districts will be facing off against Marcy Kaptur. Hispanic voters will certainly play a decisive role in the March 6 primary battle between U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich.
Kaptur will be held accountable for her vote against the DREAM Act, an action which stands in stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for the immigration measure. A recent Pew Poll found that 91% of Latino voters support the DREAM Act. The legislation would allow children of undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years, graduated from high school, and are of good moral character the opportunity to earn a path to legalization through at least two years of college or military service.
In fact, on the issue of undocumented immigrants, she has taken a far right stance, resembling more the likes of Mitt Romney: during an interview with FOX Toledo, she encouraged citizens to turn in undocumented immigrants into the FBI. This falls short of Arizona’s SB 1070, but is still encouraging similar action, looking for eyes and ears to root out undocumented immigrants.
Although Representative Kaptur has been able to ignore the sparse 4% Latino demographic in the past, in the redistricting, she will no longer be able to as the City of Lorain was absorbed into the 9th District. The City of Lorain boasts a 25% Latino demographic, which skews the political scales upon which Kaptur had made her previous calculations.
For many undocumented youth of mixed-status families, Kaptur’s explanation that it wasn’t comprehensive enough, and that it doesn’t encompass all those who are impacted, is a poor excuse. These excuses have been used before, that a bill isn’t “perfect” enough, and are often little more than an effort to deflect blame as someone whose attempts to help have been drowned out by an ineffective government process, when they themselves helped to control it.
In the past, Kaptur didn’t need the support of Latino communities who are intimately connected to the immigration debate, and now that she does, she’s trying to backpedal and rationalize a bad voting record which speaks for itself. In the end, Kucinich, though he favors more comprehensive immigration reform as well, voted for the DREAM Act, dropping the excuses which Kaptur has since embraced. At the voting booth, Latino communities will remember this.
Sincerely,
Jose Mendez
Ohio DREAMer