August 15, 2016

New Clinton Effort Tries to Tap the Power of ‘Dreamers’–AP

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is launching a new effort to tap into the political power of young, undocumented immigrants, hoping to capitalize on Donald Trump’s promises to make deporting them a top priority of his presidency.

The 730,000 young people brought to the U.S. as children without legal status are prohibited from voting. Known as Dreamers, they’ve proven themselves to be a powerful organizing force in American politics, mounting a high-profile public campaign that pressured President Barack Obama to grant many of them and their parents reprieves from deportation though two executive orders.

Clinton’s national voter registration program, called “Mi Sueño, Tu Voto/My Dream, Your Vote,” is being launched on the four-year anniversary of the 2012 order that temporarily shielded from deportation some young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and allowed them to work legally.

Organizers will remind voters that a Trump presidency would end that program, according to the campaign, which is already at risk after a June Supreme Court effectively killed Obama’s efforts to give legal status to some of the 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

The program is part of an aggressive effort by Clinton’s campaign to woo the record 27.3 million Latinos eligible to vote in 2016. Polling shows Trump doing worse with Latino voters than any GOP presidential candidate since 1996. Much of the new effort will focus on battleground states including Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Florida, where Latinos and other immigrants make up an important part of the voting base.

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