Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and one of the leaders of the Evangelical Immigration Table, warned Friday that if Republicans fail to pass a bill on immigration reform, keeping millions of undocumented immigrants in limbo, they can expect to suffer at the polls in 2016.
“If immigration continues to stay in limbo because of what happened [Thursday] and is happening today, and the Republicans say ‘we’re not gonna act at all on immigration,’ they are basically sacrificing their political future on the altar of political inaction and apathy,” Rodriguez told The Christian Post from Las Vegas Friday.
Rodriguez, who flew to Las Vegas Friday morning to join President Barack Obama at a rally to highlight the divide between Republicans and Democrats on immigration at a Del Sol High School where Hispanics are seen as an increasingly powerful voting group, said, Republicans cannot expect the support of Latinos in 2016 if they don’t expand on the executive order signed by Obama Friday granting temporary legal status and protection from deportation affecting some 5 million undocumented immigrants.
“If the Republicans, who are now in charge of both Congress and the Senate, for political reasons, if they want to win the White House in 2016, they need the Latino vote. With 27 percent of the Latino vote Mitt Romney stayed out of the White House. That means Republicans need at least 30-35 percent of the Latino vote to occupy the White House,” he explained.
Responding to an earlier CP report that there’s a divide among the leadership of the EIT on Obama’s decision to take executive action on immigration reform, Rodriguez played down the disagreement in the group.
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SOURCE: The Christian Post
Leonardo Blair
