Juan Hernandez to lobby Obama for immigration amnesty (still with Reform Institute)

Juan Hernandez - former Mexican cabinet-level official who later worked with the John McCain campaign doing outreach to (U.S.) Hispanics - was interviewed by the Al Dia (owned by the Dallas Morning News) and said he'll be staying in Washington DC to lobby the Barack Obama campaign to pass comprehensive immigration reform, aka an amnesty. Hernandez is still a Senior Fellow of the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Initiative" at the McCain-linked Reform Institute (reforminstitute.org/about/AboutHernandez.aspx), but it's not clear whether he'll be doing his lobbying through them or another group.

From the translation here (original here):

Hernandez... will reside in Washington during the next months trying to lobby for immigration reform during the administration of Barack Obama... "Obama has been very quiet regarding reform. When he is asked which are his priorities, he forgets to say immigration reform. And we are not going to let him forget", he said.

While I'm sure Obama would offer a very sympathetic ear, the question is what specifically Hernandez would bring to the table for Obama; the only thing would be more rightward leaning Hispanics and perhaps that might be enough. Note, of course, that there are dozens of leftwingers who believe in the same thing as Hernandez, such as administration member Cecilia Munoz.

The rest of the interview is just a longer version of his previous remarks; he adds in a bit more this time about the reason that McCain didn't push Hernandez' agenda harder having to do with mid-level staffers:

"McCain wanted [more pandering, more support for CIR]. Rick Davis wanted it. But when you arrived at the medium level of the campaign, the ones that operated the campaign, froze (the message)",

Sun, 01/25/2009 - 05:55 · · Importance: 9