Martinez: Tired of rhetoric on immigration

New York City-based journalist and blogger Laura Martinez is founder of www.Miblogestublog.com.

Mucho ruido, pocas nueces (literally: "Lots of noise, very few nuts") is a Mexican proverb that's widely used when you have a lot of ruckus around something but a meager outcome. It pretty much sums up the sentiment of the U.S. Latino community about President Barack Obama's latest push for immigration reform.

Obama's visit to El Chamizal, Texas, on Tuesday was historic in many ways. For starters, it was the first time a U.S. president had set foot there since September 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson met with Mexican president Adolfo López Mateos to unveil a commemorative boundary marker between the two nations. More important, Obama took the opportunity to address a mostly Mexican-American crowd about the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

Obama blasted -- even mocked -- his opponents, calling for the guys on the other side of the aisle to get their act together and help him pass reform once and for all.

The crowd cheered and clapped and at times yelled in unison "¡Sí, se puede!" -- the Spanish translation of Obama's iconic "Yes we can!" -- whenever the president mentioned the contributions of hardworking immigrants. The ambience was festive.

And it was only the beginning: On Wednesday, Senate Democrats reintroduced the Dream Act, legislation that would offer a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children if they complete two years of college or military service.

Both events should be music to the ears of Latino activists, immigration reform supporters, journalists and bloggers. But we are not thrilled to bits. Instead, many of the nation's most influential voices are calling the president a "liar," or -- worse -- a coward.

Why the bitterness?

Latinos are frustrated by the president's failure to deliver on his immigration promise, and for the most part feel they are being pandered to, again, in light of Obama's 2012 bid for re-election. Many believe the president lied when he pledged to overhaul the nation's broken immigration system in 2008 and will lie again to get elected in 2012.

As if immigration reform weren't giving the president enough headaches among the nation's largest minority, Obama is also taking punches for his stance on deportations. According to the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency, more than 400,000 people were deported in fiscal 2010, nearly 10 percent more than the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. And many of these deportations are not limited to "violent offenders and people convicted of crimes," as his administration has claimed. Many of those being sent back to their countries of origin have been students, young children or mothers who are separated from their families.

A couple of days before Obama's Texas event, prominent Latina blogger and journalist Esther J. Cepeda wrote that "Immigrant advocates are beside themselves that many of those [deportations] were not priority cases but nonviolent people without criminal pasts."

Obama says he will not be intimidated. In an interview this week with Univision reporter Mario Andrés Moreno, the president defended himself and dismissed talks that his latest immigration push is pure rhetoric: "Well, I don't know how they can call it campaign rhetoric. I've been talking about this since the day after I was elected the first time in 2008. I've been pushing for immigration reform for the past two and a half years," Obama said, adding. "What we haven't gotten is help from the other side of the aisle frankly."

Be that as it may, what's tricky right now is that the president is already campaigning for 2012, and Hispanics might not be as cheerful and supportive as they were in 2008, when they voted Democratic by a margin of more than two to one.

This time around, immigration reform activists and Latino advocates hope to see more "nuts" -- and hear less noise.