Washington (dpa) – US Hispanics dislike the way US President Barack Obama has handled immigration, although they continue to support his re-election against Republican rivals, according to a Pew Hispanic Centre study published Wednesday. Hispanics disapprove of how Obama is handling deportations of illegal migrants by a ratio of more than two-to-one. Deportations have reached “record levels” under the current administration, rising to an annual average of nearly 400,000 since 2009 – around 30 percent higher than the annual average during former president George W Bush's second term and around double the yearly average of his first term, the study found. Eighty-one per cent of the nation's more than 11 million undocumented migrants are of Latino origin, the study said. But Latinos as a whole strongly support Obama and the Democratic Party. In a hypothetical election against Republican candidate Mitt Romney, Obama won a landslide victory of 68 percent among Hispanic voters. In a similar contest against Texas Governor Rick Perry, Obama received 69 percent of the Latino vote. The results appeared similar to the 2008 presidential election, when Obama carried 67 percent of the Hispanic vote, the survey reported. Among those who disapprove of how the president is handling deportations, a majority still support his re-election over either Republican challenger – Obama would carry 57 percent of that group against Romney and 61 percent against Perry, the report found. Still, the president's overall popularity among Latinos has declined since last year. Forty-nine per cent approve of the job he is doing, down from 58 per cent in 2010, the study found. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/rPBNu Tags: Barack Obama, Latino, Re-election, United States Section: Latest News, North America
