LAS VEGAS (AP) — When President Barack Obama signs an executive order Friday to help more immigrants gain legal status, he’ll do it at the same Las Vegas high school where he first unveiled his blueprint for comprehensive immigration reform nearly two years ago.
It’s no accident - Nevada is a swing state where 27.5 percent of residents are Hispanic. An estimated 7.6 percent of residents are in the country illegally - the largest share of any state.
One in every six students has at least one parent who lives under the specter of deportation.
One of them is Astrid Silva, a Las Vegas immigration activist who was brought to the country illegally and granted temporary resident status through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that Obama launched in 2012.
Her father is scheduled to be deported in January, and it’s unclear whether he would be eligible for relief under the new plan.
Silva was planning to attend one of several watch parties scheduled in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, when Obama was expected to announce the specifics of his unilateral order.
“I want to make sure I’m going to be able to go home and my dad will be there,” she said.
The 22 months that have passed since Obama last visited Del Sol High School, where 63 percent of students are Hispanic, have been an emotional roller coaster for young activists such as Silva.
The president’s January 2013 trip came just a few months after his victory over Mitt Romney in which Obama won Nevada and took 80 percent of the votes by the state’s 270,000 Latino voters.
Rally attendee Jessie Barajas, then 18, said she had citizenship but her parents and siblings did not.
“It feels like our families were living under a rock, and now that is going to change,” she said at the time.
The optimism at the rally that drew some 2,000 people and elicited cheers of “USA!” and “Si se puede! (yes, it is possible)” - evaporated when a bill for comprehensive immigration reform stalled in the Republican-controlled House after passing the Senate. Silva said supporters of immigration reform lost faith in Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who didn’t present the measure for a vote.
Since then, Democrats have suffered dramatic setbacks nationwide. The losses in the midterm elections this month were especially pronounced in Nevada, where Democrats hold a registration advantage but stayed home from the polls en masse.
Both Democrat-controlled houses of the state Legislature switched to Republican control, and the GOP took all statewide offices and three of the state’s four congressional seats.
Latino turnout numbers for Nevada have yet to be released, but observers say they were likely dampened when candidates failed to address immigration - something that 48 percent of Latino voters in Nevada describe as the issue most important to them. A Latino Decisions poll before the midterms found 64 percent of Hispanic voters reported knowing a friend, family member or co-worker who is in the country illegally.
It will be especially important for Democrats to re-awaken that voting bloc by 2016, when Sen. Harry Reid is expected to run for re-election and could face Nevada’s first Hispanic governor, Republican Brian Sandoval, if he enters the race.
Reid survived a challenge in 2010 thanks to the Latino vote and has made clear that he’ll be attending the Friday rally where Obama will highlight his executive action on immigration.
Activists hope the new rules will rekindle the political enthusiasm in the Latino community and drive them to push for the congressional action needed for lasting, comprehensive immigration changes.
“We’re hoping it will embolden the community to get their hands dirty and get things done,” said Leo Murrieta, a Las Vegas-based national field director of the advocacy group Mi Familia Vota.
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