Immigration activist Erika Andiola warned President Obama that his party may face electoral consequences over his failure to enact executive amnesty before the November elections, claiming “people are not going to feel as engaged to go out and vote” after hearing “promises being broken by the president.”
On Monday, a panel on MSNBC’s “Jose Diaz-Balart” savaged the White House’s decision to delay promised executive amnesty for as many as six million illegal immigrants until after November, heeding calls from Senate Democrats desperate to hang onto their jobs.
Even Angela Kelly, a vice president at the Obama-aligned Center for American Progress, called the flip-flop “a sucker punch — a punch to the gut.”
Andiola, who gained fame earlier this summer by confronting Iowa Republican congressman Steve King on immigration reform, claimed immigration activists feel betrayed — and cautioned Democrats fighting for their lives in November.
“These are actual lives that are being effected,” she said, “and it’s just unacceptable to say it’s OK for him to wait after the elections, because, you know, it makes sense in politics. It’s just not acceptable, because it is effecting people.”
“And at the end of the day, you know what?” she added. “A lot of the Latino community do have family members that are undocumented, many who are citizens, who are going to be looking at these elections in the midterms. And it’s gonna affect a lot of the local races.”
“I can tell you that [in] a lot of local races, people are not going to feel as engaged to go out and vote as they did before, because they just keep hearing promises being broken by the president,” Andiola explained. “So it’s just — we’re not in a good situation.