President Barack Obama's lack of action on immigration reform is causing serious trouble to the White House dreams of his fellow liberal Democrat, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Now, Obama is facing a looming deadline, and Chicago Hispanic group Centro Sin Fronteras' founder and leader, Emma Lozano, threatens that Latinos will draft one of their own, Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, to oppose Clinton for the Democratic nomination,
Breitbart News reports.
Obama promised executive action on amnesty for illegal immigrants this summer, but backed down in the face of the upcoming midterm elections, saying instead that he would take action between the elections and the end of the year.
But if Obama wants to save Latino votes for Clinton, he doesn't have that long.
Lozano told the Washington Times that her group will start circulating a petition to urge Gutierrez to run on Nov. 4 and, if Obama has not acted by Thanksgiving, will
"draft" Gutierrez to run against Clinton, whether Gutierrez wants to run or not.
"We're obligating him to run — we're not asking him. We're in a war and when you're in a war you fight. We're drafting him," she told the Times.
Gutierrez, 61, a 10-term congressman and national leader on the immigration issue,
told Chicago Business, "I'm not running for president."
However, long-time Gutierrez confidant Doug Scofield told Chicago Business that Lozano would not be threatening to launch a Gutierrez campaign "if Luis didn't want her to."
"If President Obama betrays us again, then let it be the final time. We will march and run our own Latino independent candidate," Lozano said.
Clinton, who recently told a CNN town hall meeting that the more than 60,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children who crossed the U.S. border should be sent back home, stands to lose crucial Latino voter and delegate support should Gutierrez strongly oppose her.
Gutierrez, who said he was promised action on immigration amnesty in private meetings with Obama, was bitterly disappointed in Obama's decision to put off executive action until after the midterm elections.
"We would not wait until after November if it was an issue affecting the gay and lesbian community," he told a conference,
the Washington Post reported.
"If this was about women's reproductive rights, if this was about the minimum wage, if this was about a series of other issues, the Democratic Party would come together."
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, told the Post, "A lot of people understand there's a political calculation, but those same people understand there's a lot of people suffering because [Obama] didn't act."