The majority of the Hispanic / Latino population pie in the United States are those of Mexican descent.  Mexican American Chicanos for the most part heavily populate the southwestern part of our Nation.  Now that Florida’s Cuban American Senator via Sen. Marco Rubio is running for President, we believe it is time to remember the facts and bring up history in an effort to remind ourselves how weak his leadership skills really are.

Chicano Sin No. 1:   Senator Marco Rubio supported Arizona’s “papers please” law that would have directly affected brown-skinned Chicanos and Latinos here in Arizona with regard to SB 1070.  He has not recanted his support for SB 1070.

Chicano Sin No.2:   His support for immigration reform via the Gang of 8 until he reversed his position and backed out.

Chicano Sin No.3:   Senator Marco Rubio did not take a stand against the RNC’s anti-immigrant policy adopted in 2012 that was essentially written and blessed by Kris Kobach.  If Rubio cannot express strong leadership skills within his own Party as a “Hispanic” — how can we trust he is able to run this Nation of ours?

Rubio’s main Latino constituency in Florida are of Cuban descent, therefore we believe he doesn’t understand, feel or hear the outcry experienced by Mexicans (living in the southwest) and other Latin groups who do not receive the privilege of automatic citizenship given to Puerto Ricans, or the immigration amnesty given to Cuban immigrants.    Currently under the unique Cuban amnesty program, Cuban immigrants can receive at least one year of government entitlements once their foot touches American soil without first contributing to our tax paying system.  Republicans have long forgotten that the GOP has indeed supported immigration amnesty for years under the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) while damning Mexicans, and other Latin immigrants who do not receive Cuban amnesty.

According to a CNN Op-ed by  Raul Reyes:

Back in 2013, Rubio was a member of the Senate “Gang of 8″ that crafted a bipartisan proposal for comprehensive reform, including a path to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. He later distanced himself from the bill after it ran into resistance from House Republicans, and now says he favors a piecemeal approach, starting with securing the border.

His retreat on immigration means that Rubio has missed an opportunity to set himself apart from most of the presumptive Republican presidential candidates. That’s a shame, for this issue was supposed to be his calling card to Latino voters.

Instead, Rubio has embraced a typical conservative approach to immigration. He believes that President Obama’s Deferred Action program, offering deportation relief to young immigrants, should be ended. He has stated that the President’s executive action on immigration, on hold pending a circuit court review, sets a “horrifying precedent.”

Meanwhile, both the Deferred Action program and President Obama’s executive action on immigration are overwhelmingly favored by Hispanics. No wonder the research firm Latino Decisions reports that, “We find no evidence that Rubio’s candidacy will draw significant Latino support for his candidacy or for his party more generally.” So, if Rubio is counting on his ethnicity and personal history as the son of immigrants to win over fellow Hispanics, he is mistaken.

I’ll agree with Reyes’ opinion and will add to it.  Within the last decade the Republican Party has transformed since 2000 when they used to fight to keep Elian Gonzales as Latinos galvanized themselves in Florida. On the other hand, we have witnessed the GOP using Marco Rubio as a Trojan Horse today as a tool to deport the “Mexican equivalents” to Elian Gonzales, and this will only serve to galvanize Latinos in the entire southwest against Republicans during the 2016 election cycle.

C/S

A California Mexican-American voter responds to the Central American children who are being terrorized by Tea Party people who are verbalizing racial slurs.  The Mayor of Murrieta, California, is instilling unnecessary fear of children who are bused to California detention centers.  Does the Mayor feel the same about Cuban amnesty?  Cuban refugee immigrants have been receiving Cuban welfare and government benefits for the past 40 years. 

This picture is much greater than politics or anyone's position on immigration or immigration reform. It portrays the measures parents take in order to give their very young and innocent children a fighting chance at life. Most of these children come from South America and have had to travel on top of trains, through very dangerous parts of Mexico, in order to reach the American border. Many times their innocence is robbed from these children as they are robbed, beaten, sexually assaulted, go days without food and water, are confronted along the way by gangs who try to recruit them or worse, many die in the voyage to the US border. Not to mention they go through this all ALONE with NO family, No one to care for them, NO support group.

If they make it to the US-Mexico border crossing they have to hope the Coyote who is going to smuggle them into the US isn't going to exploit them in the various and despicable way the often do.. And then at such a young age they have to cross the extremely harsh conditions of the Arizona desert or the unforgiving tide of the Rio Grande. We Americans can't understand why parents would make their children go through this, and I understand this concern, but we fail to realize that things are so bad in parts of the world that parents rather have their children try to come to America to seek a better life than stay home. Think about how tough a decision that must be for a parent to make; knowingly sending your child into danger in hopes of a better future for him or her.

Here in America we too often take for granted the opportunities we have while families across the world are dying trying to come to America to have a small taste of hope and the American dream.

To see this manifested in a picture where a child is clearly shaken up is what breaks your heart and is sad, because ALL children of the world are innocent and to think what this kid has probably gone through at such a young raises a feelings in my heart of compassion and empathy wishing we could make a better world for all in which people can at least have their basic human needs met and live in dignity .

 

The Cuban privileged amnesty buzz is being brought back to the forefront with regard to the Central American children who are detained in detention centers in both Nogales, Arizona and in Texas. 

Arizona Chicano Activist, formerly with Voto Latino in the State of Arizona says:

If Cuban Adults qualify as refugees, then most certainly these Central American Children can qualify. Interesting how Politicians have been happy to receive Cuban 'refugees' accept them into their communities, groom them for political careers, and even present them to the country as their minority poster boys...yet when a group of children without homes, many without parents, arrive in desperation from our neighboring country the predominant conversation on the topic is about how to slam the door or how to fast to drop them off in the jungle!

I can't help but to be reminded of the 'wet foot dry foot' policy enjoyed by Cubans for over four decades now. Could the dire circumstances of these Central American countries be compared to the circumstances precipitating the Cuban Adjustment Act 1966? May we suggest that the Cuban situation no longer presents the exigency that merits such an accommodation as automatic citizenship? May we further suggest that perhaps now there may be another country in the world where the current political economic and social conditions present a more clear and present danger to the people who live there, lets say...Honduras (commonly known as the MOST VIOLENT COUNTRY IN THE WORLD), whose children are arriving at our doorstep carrying nothing with them but the hope of life? Cuban parents use the US as a sort of boarding school where they send their children to be groomed as politicians (or hip hop moguls). Hondurans send their kids to the US to escape torture and death. Perhaps its time to raise the bridge to freedom we've extended to Cuba for the last 48 years and give another country some love. 

This same message has been in question for some time in the southwestern part of the United States -- home of a high Chicano / Mexican-American population. 

Texas State Rep. Rene Oliveira told Valley Central News: 

State Representative Rene Oliveira said Thursday that 90,000 unaccompanied, undocumented children mainly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, will cross the U.S. - Mexico border illegally, by September.

The vast majority, he added, are expected to be between the ages of 5 and 14.

"Anybody who doesn't blame it on a failed - on the failure of our federal government to deal with immigration reform, is foolish," Oliveira said.

The democratic state representative compares this wave of mass illegal immigration to the exodus of Cubans in the 1980’s.