The Fair Housing Council of Oregon recently published its audit of Portland for the city’s Housing Bureau which revealed 64 percent of black and Latino renters in the stalwart liberal city were discriminated against when inquiring of available units. Following the release, an outcry that cut across party lines cascaded down the state’s media pipelines — and the animus wasn’t all aimed at the disturbing results.

Caught in the crossroads were city officials who were bound by administrative procedure to assess the results and leave all options on the table. To fair housing experts, that meant considering what action to take against the offenders, which can range from mediation and education on fair housing laws to fines and civil suits. Leland Jones, a spokesperson for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the government agency commissioned by Congress to enforce fair house laws and the 1968 Fair Housing Act, told The American Independent, “[City Commissioner Nick Fish] is doing what he is supposed to be doing. He’s surveyed the landscape.”

Fish told the Oregonian he was “outraged by the results,” but parried questions whether he would go after the violating landlords and leasing agents named in the study. Fisk said: “That’s not the right question. The intent is to do a balanced approach. I have concluded that the best approach is to look at changes to the system and not just individual remedies.”

That response did not sit well with legislators and fair housing advocates. Shanna Smith, president of the National Fair Housing Alliance told the Oregonian, “I find it unconscionable for a city to supply the money for the audit and then not enforce the law.”

A strongly-worded letter with the signatures of the 12-member Republican Senate Caucus, currently in the minority, was made public last Thursday. The letter read (PDF), “We, the Senate Republican Caucus, are asking that you prioritize enforcement of these statutes, citing, and where appropriate, prosecuting individuals who violate the civil rights of another.”

In response, Fish wrote a letter to leading Senate Republican Jackie Winters and the Republican delegation last Friday, which read in part, “Last week, I announced that Portland would pursue a dual track to combat discrimination in housing: enforcement of the law coupled with beefed-up education and outreach to renters and landlords. In the weeks ahead, I will announce an action plan, developed with key community and government partners, to combat bias in rental housing.”

On Wednesday, Fish’s office sent letters to the offices of 26 apartment buildings that were listed in the report as sites of discrimination; the addresses were also released (PDF) to the public. The Portland Housing Bureau, which Fish oversees, intends on turning over the results of the audit to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, the state’s labor department that aims to “protect employment rights, advance employment opportunities, and protect access to housing and public accommodations free from discrimination.”

To Jones of HUD, the initial media coverage poorly explained why Portland was suddenly faced with reports of discrimination. “the coverage should’ve noted that why Protland knows it has troubling numbers is because of the process, the analysis of impediments to fair housing, which conducted the tests which reported the troubling numbers,” Jones said.

The Oregonian reported the audit was commissioned by the city to satisfy the terms the federal government places on the city for accepting grants toward community development and fair housing, but Jones chided onlookers who asked why the analysis “isn’t doing anything.”

“Commissioner Fish is preparing recommendations, using all tools available, meaning enforcement and education,” Jones says.

HUD is watching how the city is responding to the audit’s findings. If the agency believes local authorities shirked enforcement, HUD can request the details of the report be passed over to its investigators. However, Jones did not criticize the city’s handling since news of the audit became public.

Fair Housing Council of Oregon (FHCO), the organization that conducted the audits, receives money from HUD to function as a watch group in the state. HUD runs two programs, the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) and Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FIHP) that contract organizations like FHCO to investigate claims of discrimination and provide education to tenants and landlords on fair housing rights.

The framework of an audit — wherein an investigator who is Caucasian or representative of the “majority” population is sent to landlords and leasing agents to compare treatment they gave to investigators who are visibly of a “protected class” — is a reliable mechanism for HUD and other housing agencies out to uncover discrimination. Sometimes the results of an audit warrant greater scrutiny, and a second wave of investigations follow. That thoroughness is to protect HUD or the U.S. Justice Department, which can represent the agency in civil suits in federal courts, from judges who are willing to throw out a case if the methodology used by the government is not sound.

The control group is not always white. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in 2006 against developer Donald Sterling, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Los Angeles Clippers, and Korean landlords in Los Angeles were for excluding non-Koreans from the rental process. Investigators posed as Koreans and compared their treatment to investigators acting as prospective renters of a different background.

Most penalties in fair housing are civil, which typically means a fine. However, if the discriminatory act also involves the use of force or a threat to use force to willfully injure or intimidate, imprisonment can result in addition to fines.

Jones says the agency has a stark reminder when education and outreach is possible: “We remind people housing discrimination is against the law.”

The enforcement of fair housing, therefore, is crucial to HUD’s mission of paring back instances of preferential treatment based on sex, race and background, he added. “Societies follow laws only if jurisdictions enforce them.”

UPDATE, 12:45 p.m.: Via an email to TAI, HUD Spokesperson Leland Jones updates his view of Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish’s decision to make public the violating rental properties that were listed in the Fair Housing Council of Oregon audit: “As was the case in the City’s decision to contract with the [FHCO] to conduct a ‘test’ in advance of the City’s revision of its Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing and the association action plan, the City’s release yesterday of the list – as well as the sending of letters to landlords and owners – reflects the City’s commitment to fulfilling its obligations under the Act.”

Recently proposed federal and state family-planning spending cuts would disproportionately hinder low-income Latinas’ access to reproductive care, said several women’s reproductive care providers and advocates during a teleconference organized this week by Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Clinic directors from local Planned Parenthood affiliates near predominately Hispanic communities illustrated how federal and state legislation might impact low-income Hispanic women, many of whom are uninsured and rely on grant-funded services offered by Planned Parenthood or other community health clinics to obtain low-cost contraception, gynecological exams, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and family-planning education.

“Threats to Planned Parenthood at the federal level mean threats to our ability to provide vital primary and prenatal care to Latinas and their families via Medicaid,” said Guadalupe Rodriguez, director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, whose health centers serve 29 counties in California.

Despite threats from the Republican-led U.S. House, the approved 2011 budget maintained Planned Parenthood funding for family planning services; however, in the final spending plan, programs that provide low-cost reproductive health care access and pregnancy prevention received significant cuts. The appropriation to Title X of the Public Health Service Act was reduced from $317 million to $300 million, and the budget cut approximately $500 million from the Women, Infants, and Children program, which provides federal grants to states for supplemental food, health care referrals and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and non-breast feeding postpartum women, as well as infants and children up to age 5 who are found to be “at a nutritional risk.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Hispanic population grew by 43 percent during the past decade, to 50.5 million people, making up 16 percent of the total U.S. population. In 2009, 23 percent of Planned Parenthood patients nationwide, approximately 620,000 people, were Hispanic, said Destiny Lopez, director of Latino engagement at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She noted that the number of male Hispanic patients increased by 191 percent in the last decade.

Lopez said that in the nine states where the Hispanic population more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, in all but one have several measures — such as family planning cuts, abortion restrictions and abstinence-only education programs — been introduced that could potentially restrict access to reproductive health care.

“With the attacks on women’s health care in Congress and in the states, even more Latinas could be cut off from basic reproductive health care like birth control, cancer screenings, and other essential services,” said Elizabeth Barajas-Román, director of policy at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.

Barajas-Román said that women with* legal status have to wait five years to qualify for public health care, including access to reproductive services such as birth control. These cuts will make it even harder for these women to get care, she said.

In Texas — where Latinos make up 37 percent of the state’s population, according to 2009 census figures — the state House voted this month to cut $60 million from family planning programs in their version of the state budget.

Last year, the federal government designated $155 million in new funding for the Personal Responsibility Education Program, a state grant program that funds sex education that includes information on abstinence, contraception and pregnancy- and STD-prevention. But state lawmakers only have until the end of the month to decide whether to apply for approximately $9 million of this grant money — meaning they might not put in a request.

“The [Texas] House budget looks terrible,” said Patricio Gonzalez, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County, the seventh-largest county in Texas, located on the Texas-Mexican border.

Gonzalez said the funding cut proposal translates into nearly 70 percent in cuts to family planning services, which he predicted would lead to the shutdown of eight to 10 of his clinics, affecting approximately 18,000 women.

Lillian Tamayo, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast, which covers Key West to Indian River, said that Hispanic women make up 20 percent of the population in her area and have disproportionately higher pregnancy, birth and cancer rates.

“The Florida Legislature, rather than being concerned on the creation of jobs, what they’ve done is dismantle women’s rights and attack women’s health,” Tamayo said, noting the 18 bills the state has introduced related to reproductive rights restrictions. ”It’s a wholesale attack on women.”

*Correction: Previously TAI reported that Barajas-Román said that women without legal status have to wait five years to qualify for health care, when in fact she was referring to women with legal status. We regret the error.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, both sides seem to think the study confirms their beliefs: Advocates of the policy said the study showed it was successful in driving out immigrants, while critics pointed to findings that crime and spending were mostly unchanged by the policy.

The study, which was a three-year project by the University of Virginia’s Center for Survey Research, looked at a variety of factors to determine the impact of a policy meant to drive out illegal immigrants. Since it was modified in 2008, the policy has required police officers to check the immigration status when they make arrests. Originally, the policy required checks only if the officer suspected the person was an illegal immigrant — much like Arizona’s SB 1070 — prompting fear of racial profiling and backlash against Latinos.

Although the Latino population dropped following the policy’s implementation, experts cautioned there could be a number of other reasons for the change, such as a sluggish economy and few jobs in sectors like construction:

“I think the policy had an effect on the ground in the direction it was intended, but it also came at a time of a very sharp economic downtown, which also contributed to changes in population … and migration behaviors,” said Brookings Institution demographer Audrey Singer, who focuses on race and U.S. immigration policy. “I think the researchers are being very careful with what they say because they can’t get a very hard estimate.”

The policy was intended to reduce crime and lower spending on social services to illegal immigrants. But the University of Virginia study found that overall crime has been on the decline in Prince William County for the past 10 years — including the years when many undocumented immigrants moved to the country.

Undocumented immigrants only made up a small number — about 6 percent — of those arrested for serious crimes in the county in 2009. The study’s authors said there was no noticeable impact on crime from the immigration enforcement policy and that social service spending remained about the same. Implementing and maintaining the policy cost the county about $3 million.

Although the study found few reports of racial profiling, some Latino residents said fears of profiling still may have led some Latinos to leave the area and harmed the county’s reputation.

What does the study mean for other counties and states that might want to replicate the Prince William County policy? It depends on who is asked. Prince William Board Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R) said he hopes the study’s findings will help with his push to expand it statewide. But the study’s authors said the lessons from Prince William County should be applied with “great caution” elsewhere.

“This is not a free policy; the board allocated substantial amounts of money” for this, Thomas Guterbock, director of Center for Survey Research, told the Washington Post. “Don’t try this if you don’t want to spend some money.”

The group argues that King and Smith’s anti-illegal immigration rhetoric and policy ideas, which include a proposal to end birthright citizenship for the American-born children of illegal immigrants, would alienate Latino voters and ruin the Republican party’s chances of defeating President Obama in 2012.

DeeDee Blase, the Somos Repubicans founder, explains:

Though it is constitutionally impossible that a mere Congressional “statute” will decide who gets to be a citizen, we believe that this insensitive and constant assailment on our Hispanic Community may push Hispanics further into the Independent, Libertarian or Democrat Party. Moreover, Hispanic voters were crucial in electing seven new Republican Hispanics to Congress and two new Republican Hispanic governors. However, Hispanics also vehemently and strongly rejected those Republicans that utilized harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and opted for a Democrat, as it occurred in the West Coast, Colorado and Nevada.

It is our sincere belief that if representatives Smith and King were to become the Chairs of the House Judiciary and Subcommittee on Immigration, and if they indeed continue such insensitive rhetoric towards Hispanics, the conditions for a Republican presidential candidate to garner the necessary Electoral College Delegates to win the 2012 presidency will not be possible. Most of those states with the highest number of Electoral College delegates reside in highly populated Hispanic states such as California, Texas, Florida and New York.

It’s tough to pin down exactly what determines Latino voting patterns — given, of course, that Latinos aren’t a unified voting bloc. But polls indicate some broad trends among Latino voters, such as general support for immigration reform and opposition to immigration crackdowns like Arizona’s SB 1070.

More specifically, nearly 80 percent of Latino voters said they opposed changes to the Constitution to alter birthright citizenship laws, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey released Oct. 28. Another 18 percent of Latinos overall said they supported changes to birthright citizenship. The number was slightly higher among Latino Republicans, 23 percent of whom said they supported changes to the 14th Amendment.

Beyond Latino voters, there is a near certainty that an effort to change birthright citizenship requirements would fail in the Senate or, at the very least, would be vetoed by Obama. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has expressed opposition to the idea.

Even if it were to pass, some Republicans have said ending birthright citizenship would hurt the GOP. After the 14th Amendment became a hot topic in the Senate in early August, two Bush administration officials called the idea of changing the amendment “offensive” and said doing so would harm the party’s legacy and turn off minorities.

It makes sense for advocates to reiterate that Latino support for Democrats should not be taken for granted: It’s how they can motivate politicians to act on issues important to them. For the most part, it seems unlikely that pro-immigration reform Latino voters would vote for Republicans who oppose paths to citizenship, even if Democrats don’t move on passing reform. But the Politico story mentions one interesting option for the GOP to garner more Latino support: Nominate Marco Rubio for president.

Rubio, a Republican who won Florida’s senate race last week, is Cuban-American and received a large portion of the Latino vote in the state. A poll of Latino registered voters the night before the election found 62 percent planned to vote for Rubio — far higher levels than for Republican candidates in other states.

Politico reports that Republican leaders are considering pushing for Rubio to run for president partially to challenge Obama’s support among Latinos:

His campaign could be their template. The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio advertised heavily on Spanish-language television, broadcasting his personal story as the centerpiece of an inspirational message to Hispanics.

Similar to former President George W. Bush, Rubio spoke about his opposition to legalization “in a respectful and empathetic tone, focusing on law-and-order aspects and not using people who cross the border illegally as political punching bags,” said Ana Navarro, a Miami-based Republican strategist and adviser to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Of course, there are a few potential problems with the strategy. Rubio will be only two years into his first Senate term in 2012, meaning he would have served even less time in the chamber than Obama did before he was elected.

Beyond that, it may not make sense to extrapolate much out of the high Latino support for Rubio last week. Florida’s Latino population often displays different trends from Latino voters nationwide because it is largely made up of Cuban-Americans, who can easily gain citizenship if they come to the United States, and Puerto Ricans, who are born citizens. These groups typically place immigration concerns lower and vote for Republicans more often than Latinos in the country overall. Rubio actually lost to Democrat Kendrick Meek among non-Cuban Latino voters in Florida, according to a pre-election poll.

Rubio also saw few challenges during the campaign over his immigration positions, a Democratic pollster told Politico. He may have lost some support among Latinos if his conservative views on immigration had been more widely known. He advocated border security, steered clear of controversy over Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration crackdown and focused most of his Spanish-language messaging on his background as the son of immigrants. In a drawn-out political race, though, the strategy may be more difficult.

“We built this infrastructure to mobilize voters to support our friends,” Field Director Rudy Lopez of Campaign for Community Change said on a conference call this afternoon. “For those who choose not to be our friends, go ask Ken Buck and Sharron Angle how they feel about the election results.”

This year’s efforts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington included canvassing for votes and massive voter registration drives. The numbers differ on how many Latinos turned out to vote: Exit polls report Latinos made up eight percent of the electorate this year, the same as in 2006, while a poll of Latino voters the night before the election estimated turnout would be up from the previous midterm elections. (For more on discrepancies between the polls, read this Nate Silver post on polling and the Latino vote.)

Latinos may be to thank for some Democrat victories, but at least this year, the pattern of anti-immigrant candidates losing doesn’t hold true in all states — particularly non-Western ones. Hazleton, Pa., Mayor Lou Barletta (R), who presided over a now-overturned law to drive out illegal immigrants, won his race for the House. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) won re-election after signing SB 1070, and Florida’s Rick Scott (R) won the governor’s race while pledging to create copycat legislation in his state.

Still, immigrant rights groups have a point: Demographic evidence does point to Latinos making up an increasing share of the electorate. Given that a majority of Latino voters support comprehensive immigration reform that includes options for some of the illegal immigrants already in the country to stay, enforcement-only candidates are unlikely to receive major Latino support.

It’s a message at least some Republicans have heard. At a panel on immigration policy and conservatism in August, several advocates of lower illegal immigration numbers said the GOP should be careful to avoid alienating voters through rhetoric against immigration. Failed California governor hopeful Meg Whitman (R) attempted to soften her immigration positions to appeal to Latino voters late in her campaign — which arguably could have worked if she hadn’t made hard-line immigration stances a focus of her GOP primary.

Although immigrant rights groups said Latinos would not be won over by anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, few went so far as to say they were mobilizing voters specifically for the Democratic Party. The idea, instead, is to get the Republican Party to recognize its need for Latino supporters. Although the party presented a few major Latino candidates this year, such as New Mexico governor-elect Susana Martinez and Florida senator-elect Marco Rubio, overall support from Latinos for Republican candidates remained low.

“The dilemma we have is also a dilemma Republicans have,” Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles Action Fund said on a conference call. “If want a chance at the presidency, they can’t ignore us.”

The exit poll data point to a continued trend of Latino support for Democrats, which is interesting given concerns that pro-immigration reform Latinos — the majority of Latino voters — might stay home to push back against Democrats who failed to address the issue. In Arizona, about 71 percent of Latino voters preferred the Democratic candidate, versus 56 percent who preferred Obama in 2008. This can perhaps be attributed to the unpopularity among Latinos of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law, which Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law this spring.

Other states saw slight dips in support for Democratic candidates from the high levels of support for Obama, but still mostly voted for Democrats. In California, the state with the largest Latino population in absolute terms, 64 percent of Latino voters picked Democrat Jerry Brown for governor over Republican Meg Whitman. Preferences for Senate were similar: 65 percent of Latinos preferred Democrat Barbara Boxer to Republican Carly Fiorina. In 2008, 74 percent of Latinos in California voted for Obama.

The only major exception in the Pew poll results was Florida, where Republican Marco Rubio captured 55 percent of the Latino vote, according to exit polls. As I mentioned yesterday, though, Rubio had high levels of support from fellow Cuban-Americans, who tend to vote Republican. The Latino Decisions poll found non-Cuban Latinos in Florida voted for the Democratic candidate, Kendrick Meek.

*One note on polling: According to Latino Decisions’ Gary Segura, a Stanford political science professor, exit poll data often under-represent minorities because exit polls tend to skip precincts that always go red or blue. Segura said minorities who live in white-dominated areas, who could be more conservative than average, tend to be over-represented in exit poll data. The Pew Hispanic Center data is based on exit polls, while Latino Decisions polled Latino registered voters directly the night before the election.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is expected to push for heavy immigration enforcement as chairman of the House immigration subcommittee next session. (Tina Fultz/ZUMApress.com)

During his campaign for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama made the now-broken promise to Latino supporters that he would pass comprehensive immigration reform in his first year as president. But in remarks to the press on Wednesday, after Republicans took control of the House and won back several seats in the Senate, talk of immigration reform was noticeably absent.

[Immigration1] Democrats will still hold a majority in both chambers during the lame-duck session, when leaders hope to pass the DREAM Act to give some undocumented young people and military service members legal status. But after January, immigration reform efforts that include paths to legal status for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States seem next to impossible, meaning the next few years will see little progress for immigration reform advocates.

“The new leaders of the House have made it clear that they’re going to continue to push an enforcement-only strategy,” said Mary Giovagnoli, director of pro-reform Immigration Policy Center. “It’s going to be a hard couple of years.”

The Republicans ushered into power in the midterms favor tight border security, strict enforcement and policies that would allow states, along with the federal government, to police immigration. Many campaigned on hard-line immigration positions that cost them support among Latinos, but won backing from the broad segments of the population that approve of illegal immigration crackdowns like Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law.

In short, Republicans who won on Tuesday hold radically different views on tackling illegal immigration from the president and Senate Democrats. Prospects are bleak for anyone who hopes to see meaningful change on immigration policy: A Democratic Senate will have trouble getting immigrant-friendly measures past the House, while the House will have trouble getting enforcement-only measures past the Senate — or the president’s desk. The result will likely be more of the same on immigration policy.

There are a few areas where Republicans have brought forth proposals to reform the immigration system. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to take over as chairman of the House’s immigration subcommittee, plans use his leadership position to call in Obama administration officials and question them on immigration enforcement, claiming “they’re not enforcing the laws.”

It’s a common argument from Republicans, who have repeatedly accused the Obama administration of taking a lax approach. After reports that immigration courts were throwing out deportation cases for illegal immigrants who were deemed non-dangerous or had pending citizenship applications, the seven current Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano demanding to know how much it would cost to find and deport every illegal immigrant in the country.

“[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has cited a lack of resources as one of the reasons for its prioritization of cases and for its selective enforcement,” the Oct. 21 letter reads. “But to date, we have not seen any efforts by ICE, your Department, or the Administration to request an increase in ICE funding. … As a result, it appears that your Department is doing the very thing that we have raised concerns about in several letters – allowing illegal aliens to evade the law.”

If Republicans attempt to force increased immigration enforcement, it would require a huge increase in funding for ICE. The agency currently receives $2.6 billion from Congress each year to detain and remove illegal immigrants. ICE Chief John Morton says this budget allows the agency to deport about 400,000 people per year — a number it approaching this year. Deporting the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, then, could cost as much as $70 billion.

Of course, most Republicans don’t advocate a deportation-only method to decreasing illegal immigration numbers in the country. GOP members also say they hope to pass legislation to eliminate possible incentives for foreigners to stay in the country by cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, eliminating the few social services illegal immigrants can receive and in some cases even eliminating citizenship for children born in the country to undocumented parents.

A GOP-led initiative to end birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants under the 14th Amendment received support from 95 House members in 2009, although the bill never made it out of committee. Instead of attempting to amend the Constitution, the bill would create a statute limiting citizenship to children with at least one parent in the country legally.

King plans to push for the bill again in the next session of Congress, where support for the measure will be even stronger. King insists the bill is both legal and necessary to stop the “anchor baby” phenomenon — the idea that illegal immigrants come to America and have children in order to gain legal status — which most immigration experts agree does not exist because citizens cannot petition for legal status for their families until they are adults.

Expanding E-Verify, a controversial program that allows employers to check the immigration status of potential employees, is another likely priority for the Republican-led House. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is expected to head the Judiciary Committee, co-sponsored a bill to make use of E-Verify mandatory for all employers. (Federal agencies and contractors are already required to use the program.)

Of course, House Republicans cannot enact any laws without the support of Obama or the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is unlikely to risk angering Latino voters by passing enforcement-only immigration measures. But even if it means gridlock, House leaders seem committed to blocking comprehensive immigration reform.

“The best solution to the problem of illegal immigration is to enforce current laws,” Smith told the Chicago Tribune last week. “Attrition through enforcement can reduce the number of illegal immigrants already in the U.S.”

“The Latino firewall in the west actually saved the election for Democrats,” Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigration reform group America’s Voice, said on a conference call. “Latino voters played a significant role in Senate races.”

Although it is still unclear how many Latinos turned out to vote, the poll taken the night before the election indicates strong support for Democrats. On a generic ballot, 76 percent of the Latino voters polled picked the Democratic candidate over the Republican. Preferences were particularly strong in California, which has the country’s largest Latino population. About 86 percent of Latino voters in the state preferred Democrat Jerry Brown for governor over Republican Meg Whitman, and the same number preferred Democrat Barbara Boxer for Senate over Republican Carly Fiorina.

A majority ranked the economy, jobs and immigration as their top issues for choosing candidates, and most said they wanted to see immigration reform that included paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country.

In Nevada, where Reid faced a tough race against Republican Sharron Angle for his Senate seat, Latinos seem to have made the difference between winning and losing for the majority leader. Latinos preferred Reid by large margins to Angle, who has run an aggressively anti-illegal immigration campaign that many perceived as anti-Latino.

Latino groups said harsh rhetoric against illegal immigration by Republican candidates mobilized Latino voters, many of whom said anti-Latino or anti-immigrant sentiment influenced their vote. Because Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group in the country, rights groups said this year’s results could spell bad news for Republicans in 2012 and beyond as Latino voters become more influential.

“Political parties that demonize or take Latinos for granted are doing it at their great risk,” Clarissa Martinez de Castro of National Council of La Raza said on the call.

One exception was in Florida, where the Latino Decisions poll found majority Latino support for Republicans Rick Scott for governor and Marco Rubio for Senate. Florida, though, is generally an exception to most trends in Latino voting due to the large number of Cubans, who are often Republican, and Puerto Ricans, who are born U.S. citizens and therefore less involved in immigration issues. Although Rubio received 62 percent of the vote among Latinos polled Monday, Democrat Kendrick Meek had the advantage among non-Cuban Latino voters.

Salazar lost to Republican Scott Tipton, a Tea Party-backed candidate who will likely support heavier immigration enforcement without paths to legal status for the illegal immigrants already in the country. In Texas, Republican Francisco “Quico” Canseco defeated Rodriguez, a six-term congressman, and Republican Blake Farenthold took out 14-term congressman Ortiz.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is made up of Democrats and supports immigration reform that would allow some of the illegal immigrants in the United States to remain if they paid fines and taxes, learned English, passed background and civics tests and registered with the government. Losing three members from the caucus may seem minor given the size of Congress, but it means at least three pro-immigration reform members will be replaced in the House with members who support restricting immigration and tightly enforcing immigration laws to drive out current undocumented immigrants.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who chairs the immigration task force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, easily won re-election yesterday. But he acknowledged that enacting immigration reform will be more difficult with a GOP-led House. “If Republican opposition prevents us from seriously addressing immigration legislatively, then the President must address the toll deportations are taking on American families and neighborhoods through administrative action,” he said in a press release.