By Caren Bohan and Laura MacInnis
CARTAGENA, April 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama
attacked Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday
over his stance on illegal immigrants and promised to pursue
broad immigration reform if he wins another term.
On a three-day visit to Colombia for a summit with Latin
American leaders, Obama is hoping to court Hispanic voters back
home whose support could be crucial to him in the Nov. 6
election.
The Democratic president wants to fight an impression that
he has neglected Latin American and failed to push hard enough
on comprehensive immigration reform.
Obama said in an interview with Univision that Romney’s
support of Arizona’s tough immigration law was “very
troublesome.”
“We now have a Republican nominee who said that the Arizona
laws are a model for the country,” Obama said, referring to
Republican front-runner Romney, a former Massachusetts governor.
“These are laws that potentially would allow someone to be
stopped and picked up and asked where their citizenship papers
are based on an assumption,” Obama said in the interview, which
was taped in Cartagena on Fri day.
The Arizona law, signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer in
2010, calls on state and local police to check the immigration
status of people suspected of being in the country illegally and
to pursue deportation aggressively.
Pressed on whether he would promise to move forward on
immigration reform quickly if he gets re-elected, Obama blamed
Republicans for the inaction so far and added, “I can promise
that I will try to do it in the first year of my second term. I
want to try this year.”
Obama enjoys a big advantage with Latino voters, who tend to
favor Democratic candidates and backed him by a margin of
two-to-one in his 2008 race against Republican John McCain.
However, Obama hopes to avoid any erosion of support from
these voters in battleground states like Florida, Nevada,
Arizona and Colorado, where Latinos make up a large portion of
the population.
(Reporting By Caren Bohan and Laura MacInnis; Editing by Eric
Walsh)
