Poll: Latinos disapprove of Obama's handling of deportation, yet favor Democrat over Romney and Perry

SALT LAKE CITY — Nearly 60 percent of Latinos disapprove of the Obama administration's handling of deportation of unauthorized immigrants, a new national poll of more than 1,200 Latino adults reveals.

Deportations have reached record levels — an average of 400,000 a year since 2009 under President Obama's administration. This is nearly double the annual average of President George W. Bush's first term. Meanwhile, arrests of border crossers by the U.S. Border Patrol have declined more than 70 percent since 2005.

Local advocates and political observers say the results of the national survey are hardly surprising because many Latinos perceive that few of Obama's campaign promises to fix the nation's immigration issue have been realized.

"They feel betrayed by President Obama," said Dr. Cesar Diaz, whose suburban medical practice serves a diverse Hispanic population. "While I'm not that into politics, what I've been told is the reason he got the Latino vote was promises he made about changing the status of immigration."

Attorney Aaron Tarin, whose practice includes criminal defense and immigration law, said the majority of his Hispanic clients in Utah are disappointed in the Obama administration's failure to overhaul the nation's broken immigration system. 

"Most are shocked to find out that deportations are at an all time high with this administration," said Tarin.

"Those of us deportation defense attorneys have certainly seen a surge of deportations in the last three years with ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) aggressively seeking out even those who have not committed serious crimes."

However, the 2011 National Survey of Latinos also found that Hispanics prefer the first-term Democratic president to Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry by wide margins in the survey released Wednesday.

Many Latinos find the campaign rhetoric intended to court "arch-conservative" delegates or voters more apt to participate in party caucuses or primary elections to be offensive, said community activist Tony Yapias.

"At this stage, they're just trying to get the votes they need so they want to sound as extreme as possible," Yapias said.

Perry, for instance, urged a more compassionate approach. "He went downhill from that time and hasn't been able to recoup," Yapias said.