WASHINGTON, DC— The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) issued the following statement following Wednesday’s State of the Union Address by President Barack Obama:

“We appreciate that President Obama is committed to addressing the needs of American families as they face the worse economic downturn in recent history. Latinos have been disproportionately affected by job loss and home foreclosures and deserve the opportunity to take care of their families. It is our hope that as President Obama develops policies aimed at strengthening America’s working families, he also fulfill the clear and unequivocal commitment he made during his campaign to fix our nation’s broken immigration system.

During his address, President Obama talked about the ‘ideals’ and ‘values that allowed us to forge a nation of immigrants.’ The leadership of this nation is failing to address this pressing need. We call upon President Obama and Congress to act swiftly to enact fair and comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to U.S. citizenship for law abiding, tax-paying newcomers. NALEO has adopted principles on comprehensive immigration reform [click here] that provide a road map to the work that needs to be done on this important national issue; we urge the President and Congress to use them as a guide for making the critical changes that are needed in our immigration policy.

We are encouraged that President Obama also committed to renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). However, we urge him to ensure that the needs of the nation’s 14 million Latino students are addressed in any education reform that he champions. As the second largest population group in the nation, the success of the Latino community and the need to accelerate the educational attainment of our students is intrinsically tied to the future strength and success of America.

The President missed an opportunity in calling our nation to task and encouraging full participation in the 2010 decennial Census. As the US Census Bureau begins its process of enumeration, we urge the Administration to promote the Census and work towards a full count and to strongly counter any attempts to suppress participation in this important civic process.

As NALEO’s constituency of Latino elected and appointed officials are faced with governing under challenging circumstances, we call on the President and Congress to enact strong and bi-partisan leadership to address the issues facing our nation.”