Immigration Activists Applaud NCLR Leader’s “Deporter-in-Chief” Obama Comments

Mar 4, 2014
12:34 PM

An article published today in Politico contained the following comment by Janet Murguía, the head of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), one of President Obama’s closest U.S. Latino political allies:

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President Barack Obama has lost the nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization.

The National Council of La Raza is set to declare Obama “the deporter-in-chief” and demand that he take unilateral action to stop deportations.

NCLR, the nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization, had been the last significant progressive grass-roots immigration-reform organization publicly defending the White House immigration stance. NCLR President Janet Murguía will on Tuesday night demand Obama put a halt to his administration’s deportations.

“For the president, I think his legacy is at stake here,” Murguía said in an interview in advance of NCLR’s annual Capital Awards dinner, where she will deliver a speech lambasting Obama’s deportation policy. “We consider him the deportation president, or the deporter-in-chief.”

As you might imagine, there is buzz today in the immigration activist community, since NCLR was one of the last groups out there overlooking the President’s record deportation numbers as he and Congress continue to play an immigration reform game that has lost momentum.

Looks like NCLR finally paid attention to what most U.S. Latinos already know: President Obama could do more to stop the deportations and separate families.

Here is just a sampling of reactions to the Murguía’s comments:

Interestingly enough, NCLR also tweeted out the POLITICO story, but focused on the first part of Murguía’s quote and not the second part:

Our own Twitter account had a debate about the news:

That last tweet says it all. In the end, the GOP is not that into immigration reform. The President should know that a large part of the base that got him elected and which NCLR helped to mobilize is down with the back and forth. It’s time to act, Mr. President. Lead. Don’t play tentative politics on this one.

As for NCLR, one FB fan said it bes, “It’s an indication how out of touch they [NCLR] are with their roots and constituency.”

It sure took a long time for NCLR to finally admit what everyone else knew. Good.