President Barack Obama promised Dec. 30 to introduce an immigration bill during 2013, but activists on all sides of the debate are trying to understand his strategy.
He may be gunning for a victory in the mid-term elections by introducing a bill so radical that it will spark an emotional controversy from whites, which would then spur many angry Latinos to vote Democratic in the 2014 midterm elections, said Robert de Posada, former head of a GOP-affiliated group, The Latino Coalition.
“The word that I’ve heard from many, is [that he will] submit a very, very liberal plan that most Republicans will not support, that most southern and moderate Democrats will not support,” he said.
When the bill fails, “they can announce once again that they tried [and that Latinos] need to rally in the next election,” said Posada, who helped President George W. Bush win 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004, during the housing boom.