By Laurel Morales Fronteras Desk
Latino voters prefer a DREAM Act that promises citizenship, and they are not keen on an alternative DREAM Act proposed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, according to a new poll.
The poll, from Latino Decisions, shows 87 percent support among Latinos for Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin's version of the DREAM Act and 49 percent support for Republican Rubio's version.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.The Durbin version would allow for permanent legal residence, creating a potential path to citizenship. Rubio's would provide temporary legal status for illegal immigrant youth who go to college or serve in the U.S. military.
DREAM stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors.
Rubio pointed out in a Fox News interview that Durbin’s DREAM Act has failed twice to get enough support.
"The first problem with the DREAM Act is we can’t get 60 votes for it in the Senate," Rubio said. "The second thing is the DREAM Act itself has certain things that lead to that opposition. For example it would allow for chain migration. So not only are the kids going to be helped but they can use that position to bring in their relatives. That could be 3-4 million people, so that raises red flags."
Latino Decisions spokesman Gabriel Sanchez, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico, said Rubio’s name has appeared on the short list of Mitt Romney’s potential running mates.
"If the idea is to use Marco Rubio and his particular version of the DREAM Act as a means of reaching out to Latino voters, it doesn’t look like this is going to be the game changer that they might hope that it would," Sanchez said.
The poll also showed Latinos favor President Obama over Romney by a wide margin, 66 percent to 23 percent.
The poll was conducted in the last week of May and first week of June among 609 Latino adults across the nation. It has a margin of error of 3.9 percent, meaning the results could be that far off in either direction.
Fronteras Desk is a collaborative project of seven public broadcasting entities in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas, including Arizona Public Media.
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