Conservative Group In Ad Aimed At Latinos: Barack Obama Deports Lots Of Illegal Immigrants

A conservative group called American Principles in Action is running an ad targeted at Latinos that emphasizes the fact that Barack Obama has deported a lot of illegal immigrants:

“Don’t be fooled by President Obama’s words,” the narrator says. “He’s not committed to immigrants. He only wants our vote. With the election on the line, he offers our undocumented youth a temporary solution that cheats them of legal status. Why didn’t he keep his promise to push immigration reform? Instead, Obama has deported more people than any other president in this country’s history. With friends like these, who needs enemies?”

Politifact rates the ad as “half true” because, technically, Bush deported more people in eight years than Obama has since 2009. However, Obama has been on a pace since he entered office that would put him well ahead of Bush’s record at the end of eight years.

What really occurs to me, though, are two thoughts:

  1. Why is a conservative group hitting Barack Obama for deporting illegal immigrants? Isn’t that what they want?
  2. If this ad is targeted at Latinos, why isn’t at least part of it in Spanish?

Just asking……..

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, Borders and Immigration, US Politics, ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Vast Variety says:

    xcuse me while I laugh at that groups expense… ROFL.

  2. mantis says:

    They better not show this ad to non-Hispanic conservatives. They might just vote for Obama!

  3. legion says:

    This is so incompetent I almost think it’s a ‘false-flag’ commercial to get anti-immigrant Republicans to vote for Obama…

  4. legion says:

    @mantis: D’oh!

  5. al-Ameda says:

    What really occurs to me, though, are two thoughts:
    (1) Why is a conservative group hitting Barack Obama for deporting illegal immigrants? Isn’t that what they want?
    (2) If this ad is targeted at Latinos, why isn’t at least part of it in Spanish?

    Plausible answers:
    (1) Actually, they don’t want those illegal immigrants to be deported, they want them to be given voter-ID and registered Republican.
    (2) They asked Marco Rubio to narrate the ad in Spansh, but he refused.

  6. Vast Variety says:

    This is like the scences from Swing Vote where the two canidates switch sides on various issues to get that one vote.

  7. anjin-san says:

    The irony meter really can’t take much more of this punishment…

  8. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Well, the answers to those two questions are obvious, although for obvious reasons they’re not necessarily cognizable to the addled Internet demographics.

    In any event, I suspect this group is barking up the wrong tree and that electorally speaking they’re wasting their money. There only are three Latino-heavy states that are in play and the one that really matters has a Latino demographic (Cuban ex-pats and their descendents) that’s completely different from the Latino demographics in the other two salient states. The former don’t need any further reasons to vote Republican; the latter largely have become another Democrat identity group and accordingly in large part are a lost political cause. Besides, in the final analysis it’ll all be about the stupid, economy. If I were this group I would put my money to work elsewhere.

  9. Some quasi-serious answers to Doug’s queries:

    1. Just because the group’s ideology is conservative doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from voters defecting from supporting Obama. Even if they don’t convince a voter to vote for Romney, if they get them to stay home or vote for Roseanne Barr or Gary Johnson or cast a blank ballot that’s nearly as good. See also: Claire McCaskill’s effort to pump up Akin’s candidacy in Missouri.

    2. The vast majority of voting-eligible Hispanics – i.e. citizens over 18 – are English-speakers (and probably the majority of actual Hispanic voters are not ESL). That said I’m sure there will be a Spanish translation to run on Univision and Telemundo etc if they do actually air it on Spanish-language TV.

  10. David says:

    A conservative group touting Obama’s conservative immigration policy… You really cannot make this stuff up.

  11. Davebo says:

    Bush and Obama have deported people?