President Tells Radio Bilingüe He Wants to Prevent Family Separations

By Charlie Ericksen

In one of two interviews directed to reach large Hispanic audiences this past week, President Obama Feb. 21 addressed the community’s growing concern, as defined by Radio Bilingüe national news director Samuel Orosco, that as many as 5,000 Latino children of detained or deported parents are being warehoused in foster care.

Obama responded that his administration will do “anything we can to prevent those (family) separations.”

Covering a swath of issues, Obama said Latinos will benefit most from his mortgage refinancing plan and housing settlements with banks and “regain equity and keep their homes” because they were disproportionally targeted by subprime lenders.

Orosco also engaged Obama on concerns ranging from joblessness to immigration.

The President promised to continue pressing Congress to pass the DREAM Act. If Congress won’t move on immigration reform, “at minimum we should be able to do the DREAM Act and we should be able to do it this year.”

Interpreted into Spanish, the conversation was rebroadcast Feb. 27 on the network’s Línea Abierta.

Radio Bilingüe founder Hugo Morales called the interview “confirmation of the network’s status as a vital source of national news, the platform for our nation’s leaders to engage with Latinos.”

The broadcast is one in a multimedia series on Latino civic engagement. Founded in 1977, Radio Bilingüe is a Latino controlled non-commercial network. It owns and operates seven FM public radio stations in California, with programming carried by more than 100 affiliates nationwide.