La Raza Pres: Latinos Will Vote for Politicians Who Stood with ‘Our Community’ on Exec Amnesty

On Thursday, La Raza President and CEO Janet Murguia said the executive amnesty debate will allow Latinos to determine which politicians stood with “our community.”

On Jose Diaz Balart’s MSNBC show, Murguia urged the White House to find the “most expeditious way to move forward” that puts them in the best position to get the injunction against the executive action overturned. Murguia said she was disappointed but not surprised by Judge Andrew Hanen’s injunction.

When asked about Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s (D-IL) prediction that the injunction would activate an unprecedented “militancy” among Latino that will drive them to the ballot box, Murguia said Gutierrez was “tapping into a sentiment of frustration by many in the Latino community who see these efforts to dismantle these programs as not attacks on the President,” but “attacks on American families.”

Murguia said her organization will help prepare illegal immigrants to apply for Obama’s temporary amnesty because she is confident Obama’s executive amnesty programs are on “solid legal footing” will be allowed to go forward. But she said her group will also use “advocacy”–like voter education and engagement–during the delay to activate the Latino electorate ahead of the 2016 elections.

“Ultimately, we can determine which politicians stood on the side of the law and of history and our community and which ones did not,” she said, predicting an “unprecedented effort to get out the vote as we see the presidential elections looming large in 2016.”

Murguia said “it is very clear that this issue will be front and center as we look at candidates who are emerging” in 2016 at the state and national levels.

“This issue is of great importance to us as a community and as Latino voters, and it will be one of the top issues in which we use as a lens to determine our vote,” Murguia said.

On Tuesday, Gutierrez told Diaz Balart that the executive amnesty injunction will activate a “militancy… throughout the immigrant community in terms of voter registration, voter participation and voter anger at the Republican Party… I think you are going to see it in an unprecedented manner.”