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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Monday, May 07, 2012

Marco Rubio: Dividing Cubans from Hispanics 'Offensive'

Politico (by Lois Romano): Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who’s been grabbing national headlines as a new generation Republican and potential running mate for Mitt Romney, is pushing back against suggestions that he would be of minimal value on the presidential ticket because as a conservative Cuban-American, he might not appeal to a broader Hispanic population.

Such a notion, he said, is “offensive.”

“I’ve never said that me or anybody’s last name ends in a vowel automatically guarantees anything,” Rubio shot back during at interview at his home here. “I’ve never claimed that and, more importantly, I would say that’s borderline offensive.”

The concept of Rubio not being popular among non-Cuban Latinos is a touchy topic for him, as the one-term senator and tea party favorite tries to present himself as concerned about the plight of illegal immigrants and the economic hardships of Hispanics. Last week, he began floating an alternate version of the DREAM Act, which would offer some short-term residency opportunities for the children of illegal immigrants. The Democrats’ version — uniformly opposed by Republicans — would offer minors conditional permanent residency.

With his wife, Jeanette — the daughter of Colombian immigrants — sitting beside him in the couple’s family room in West Miami, Rubio, 40, launched into a rigorous defense of his deep roots in the Hispanic community, telegraphing his sensitivity on the issue.

“Dividing Cubans against the rest of the Hispanic community is not only absurd, it’s offensive. I mean, my wife’s not Cuban; her family’s not Cuban,” he said.

“My point is, my neighbors, my family members — I have family members that are not from Cuba. I mean, Jeanette’s family is now my family. I’m surrounded by neighbors, friends, co-workers. I mean, I don’t live in a bubble, especially in Miami, where we’ve got people from all over Latin America that are our neighbors, our friends, go to school with our kids. I mean, I’ve lived that experience. And growing up in Las Vegas around Mexican-American kids, that’s just — particularly Miami, that’s just silly. This is as pan-American as any community in the world.”

Youthful, compelling and a gifted, bilingual orator, Rubio is being looked to by his party for a significant boost to a charisma-challenged presidential candidate and a party that has tanked among Hispanics. A survey from the Pew Hispanic Center shows that only 6 percent of Hispanic voters believe the GOP is the party most concerned for them, while 47 percent believe Democrats watch out for them.

In addition to adding a little zip and texture to the ticket, Rubio’s appeal to Romney is ultimately rooted in the hope he could help deliver Florida, a historic battleground state that Barack Obama won in 2008.

But as much adulation as Rubio has gotten in recent months, questions have been raised privately by Republicans and Democrats — and publicly by pundits — whether he could swing votes among Hispanics. There has long been an unspoken political distinction between the interests of Cuban-Americans and the larger Hispanic community — largely because Cubans have for 50 years been given blanket amnesty when they arrive here. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans make up the largest bloc of Hispanics in the country.

Florida’s Cuban voters will turn out for Rubio, but the question is whether he can draw non-Cuban Hispanics. A recent survey by Public Policy Polling found that Obama is leading among Hispanics in Florida and Romney received no advantage with Rubio on the ticket — in fact, he dropped a couple of points.

Rubio — who has been imploring Republicans to halt the inflammatory rhetoric on immigration and articulate positive objectives, counters that the Hispanic vote shouldn’t be seen as a monolithic bloc for either party. “The Hispanic voter is just as well-informed as any other voter in the country, and [the vote ] it has to be earned, and it has to be earned through a message and a vision and a set of policies that inspire people and unite people and move people forward. And I’ve always said that’s what Republicans need to do,” he said.

“This notion of dividing Hispanic groups against each other is par for the course of this administration that’s constantly dividing women against men, poor versus rich,” Rubio said. “This administration can’t help itself in terms of dividing people against each other because they know they can’t win on their record, including their record with the Hispanic community.”

Rubio said he’s gotten a largely positive response from immigration groups as well from his conservative congressional colleagues about his compromise DREAM Act.

“I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised at the number of Republicans, conservative Republicans, that will view our solution as one that — I don’t want to oversell it. I don’t know what the numbers are going to be, but I think it’s going to be very significant.

“I certainly haven’t had anybody tell me, ‘Don’t keep doing this, it’s not going to go anywhere.’”

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