Eva Longoria can add activist to her list of job titles.
The actress has spoken out on immigration, saying that Republicans have a moral, political, and economic duty to compromise on the issue.
As The Associated Press noted, Eva Longoria has been a political activist in the past, supporting Pres. Obama. Her work for the president during the 2012 campaign — when she served as a campaign co-chair — was credited with helping bring more Hispanic support for the president.
Longoria’s speaking out on immigration may solidify that support Obama found among Hispanic voters. Many of those voters have been turned off by the hard-line approach Republicans have had on immigration, where even moderates like Mitt Romney are in favor of self-deportation.
Romney said he would oppose the Dream Act, which lets undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children stay in the country. Eva Longoria made her turn as activist this weekend while on ABC’s This Week . Longoria said she hopes Obama makes immigration a priority in his second term.
“People say, ‘Oh, get in the back of the line,’ [but] people don’t realize there’s a hundred lines to get into,” Longoria said of the immigration process. “It’s a very broken system.”
Longoria’s work with the Obama administration stretches beyond campaigning and immigration advocacy, ABC News noted. Longoria is executive producer of Latino Inaugural, a concert at the Kennedy Center featuring performances by several artists including Jose Feliciano, Melanie Griffith, and New York City’s Ballet Hispanico.
“What I am hopeful about is that this administration, and particularly President Obama, sees that immigration is an economic issue,” said Longoria, a co-chair of the Presidential Inauguration Committee. “We have to understand that we are dependent upon a labor in this country, specifically agriculture, to provide low-cost products, and they’re jobs that nobody else is doing.”
Eva Longoria said being an activist won’t extend any further than what she’s doing now. The actress has declined the chance to run for office in her home state of Texas.
