Democrats Losing Young Latinos Due to Deportations

On one side of the two current major political parties in the U.S. you have Republicans preventing any sort of immigration reform from moving forward. On the other side, you have the Democratic president deporting a record breaking number of people.

This situation is turning young Latinos away from politics.

A new study has found that when Latinos between 18 and 31 learn about the Obama administration’s two million deportations they become more negative towards the Democratic party.

“It’s not that young Latinos will become Republicans, because that party is even more harsh on immigration, but as they learn more about [Obama’s] deportations they’ll be turned off by politics entirely,” said Michael Jones-Correa, a professor of government at Cornell University and one of the study authors.

“They’ll just opt-out,” Jones-Correa said.

Here’s a bit more details from the report titled “Mass Deportations and the Future of Latino Partisanship:” [PDF]

”In the control condition with no additional information 55 percent of respondents rated the Democrats as “welcoming,” compared to 45 percent among those who received the additional information on deportations; this difference is statistically significant. Learning that Obama has been deporting more people per year than his predecessor makes Latinos view the Democratic Party as less welcoming.

About 800,000 young U.S.-born Latinos turn 18 every month and become eligible to vote. Latinos of all ages tilt Democratic, specially young people. They’ve been widely perceived as a group of voters who Democrats have on lockdown.

“The Democratic party shouldn’t take the Latino vote for granted, Jones-Correa told Fusion.

Hits Close to Home

Many of the U.S.-born Latinos interviewed in the study said they have close ties to undocumented residents or people who have been deported: 21 percent reported that a close family member has been deported. This figure rose to 27 percent when the research included friends.

Almost half of the respondents, 46 percent, said they have at least one parent who lived in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at one point.

Being Lumped Into One Group

About 72 percent of respondents agreed when asked, “Do you think how undocumented immigrants are viewed by the general public also affects how US-­‐born Latinos are viewed?”

The researches said these finding suggests that U.S.-born Latinos may perceive laws targeting the undocumented as attacks on themselves as well.