Amnesty Isn’t the GOP Gift to Unlock the Hispanic Vote
With President Obama corralling a stunning 71% of the Hispanic vote in his successful 2012 re-election bid, “establishment Republicans” are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out how to get a piece of America’s fastest growing demographic. (I’ve opined about how the GOP has written off the black vote as unattainable. I guess when the Hispanic vote approaches 90% for Democrats, Republicans will reconsider ignoring blacks like the heels of their shoes.)
House Speaker John Boehner, Karl Rove, Reince Priebus, and shockingly even Sean Hannity are calling for AMNESTY or some variation thereof under the guise of “immigration reform.” This new amnesty gang concluded Romney lost the Hispanic vote because of his “self-deportation” blunder.
Predicting another presidential loss in 2016 unless the party reverses its wicked ways, this GOP pro amnesty gang believes granting citizenship to the estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens in this country will translate into Hispanic votes. Wrong! Amnesty isn’t the answer to winning the Hispanic vote or why Romney didn’t wow Hispanics.
Romney was inelegant in the way he talked about many topics but that doesn’t mean he was wrong, particularly about stopping illegal immigration. He should have explained that self-deportation meant. If the government enforced the laws, by securing our borders and cracking down on businesses who hire illegal aliens, these criminals who broke the law to come to America would voluntarily go back home.
Before the avalanche of illegal immigrants started pouring across or borders in the 1990s, American citizens worked jobs currently filled by illegal workers. Two exit polls, one conducted by CBS and another by Brietbart News/Judicial Watch both found more than 60% of Americans supported Arizona’s immigration laws. With unemployment at a record high for the past four years, illegal aliens in the workforce not only take jobs from the country’s 23 million unemployed Americans but is particularly harmful to Hispanic and black citizens who suffer higher unemployment rates. This is what Romney should have explained.
Americans want enforcement of immigration laws because they know illegal immigrants harm Americans by depressing wages, stealing jobs an increasing taxpayer costs for welfare, education, and social security programs. According to two studies conducted by the Heritage Foundation , the cost of amnesty would run $1trillion over 30 years, which works out to be about $90 billion a year. This is 70 times the minimum $13.5 billion yearly cost of proposed enforcement bills, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
Counter to the myth the mainstream media and some Republicans are pushing, polls found Hispanics supported Romney’s position on mandatory E-verify. According to an October Pulse Opinion poll 66% of Hispanics supported mandatory E-Verify to prevent companies from hiring illegal immigrants. Another NBC Latino/IBOPE Zogby poll conducted in October 2012 found only 5% of Hispanics felt immigration was a top concern to them.
According to NumbersUSA, Romney’s position on enforcement of immigration laws helped him get more Hispanic votes than pro-amnesty John McCain did in 2008 in 16 of the 20 states with the highest Hispanic population. If the current GOP posturing on amnesty is true, that it will increase the GOP share of the Hispanic vote in the future elections, why does history tell another tale? In 1986 Ronald Reagan signed the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill, granting amnesty to illegal aliens living in America and pledged to secure the borders. Enforcement never happened and two years later in 1988 “George H. W. Bush lost the Latino vote by 39 points.”
McCain’s pro amnesty stance didn’t help him win overwhelming support from Hispanics in 2008. Compared to Obama’s 67%, McCain only got 31% of the Hispanic vote.
In 1996, after implementing “Operation Gatekeeper,” aimed at securing the border along San Diego and Mexico, Clinton ran away with 72% of the Hispanic vote compared to Bob Dole’s paltry 21%.
While Obama used executive order to bypass Congress, granting amnesty to Hispanics age 31 and under , his administration deported over 1 million illegal immigrants during Obama’s first term in office.
Obama won 71% of the Hispanic vote in 2012 compared to Romney’s 29% not because of his “amnesty” giveaway, but because he took his message of “growing the entitlement state and Americans dependency upon government” to Hispanics. Mitt was right, Hispanics, blacks and women voted for the gifts Obama promised them. Maybe Mitt should have bothered offering these groups his gifts. I think the GOP should be taking a message of enforcement to all Americans, along with NumbersUSA five great solutions, which includes ending birthright citizenship.
The irony of all this pro-amnesty talk from “elites inside the GOP” is none of them mentions the first Hispanic elected US Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, is a pro-enforcement guy. Cruz campaigned on promising “to strengthen border security and help ensure that America remains a nation of laws” not lawlessness, which is what allowing illegal immigration is.
As a friend noted, minorities are choosing Democrats because Republicans are abandoning them. The same friend, a Los Angeles Police Department Detective in South Los Angeles, said “during this election cycle, there was NO one from the national or state GOP campaigning in our area.” LA we have a problem!
Responding to campaign advisor Lionel Sosa in 1984, who said it would be hard to win the Hispanic vote, Reagan replied: “Hispanics are already Republican. They just don’t know it.” Reagan took “his gifts,” the message of conservatism to Hispanics and won 40% of their vote. Amnesty isn’t the key to the GOP unlocking the Hispanic vote, it’s getting the messenger to take its blinders off.
@noel…You mean like the inflated military budget , the tax havens for people like Romney , the Oil , Heath Insurance and Big farm lobbies , Monsanto , Halliburton….you mean that entitlement culture
@Truevoice
What racism? Don’t tell me you actually believe all the liberal propaganda!
Let me tell you something, before Obama became president the Republican Party was rarely accused of racism then a black man becomes president and liberals go all crazy accusing anyone who does not agree with one of Obama’s positions as being a racist. I’m not racist and before Obama became president was never called a racist then I clearly articulated to a liberal why I don’t agree with some of Obama’s positions and all the liberal did was scream back calling me racist.
Why if Republicans are so racist as you and liberals claim why did Herman Cain a BLACK MAN receive so much support from white Republicans? Huh? Liberals are so nuts that some of them think Herman Cain was paid to go on stage and Republicans would cheer loud for him so people would not think the party was racist. Hahaha
You buy into all the Democrats BS to easily. Obama could not run on his record so Democrats started all these demographic wars saying Republicans hate you Republicans hate this about you blah blah blah….What a bunch of BS! How sad they had to use attacks constantly to win.
Bush in 2001 signed the Dream Act and received 44% of the Hispanic vote in 2004 election. I also believe he campaigned the Hispanics very well. He is from Texas which has a good amount of Hispanics so he can relate to them a bit
Amnesty is a bad public policy doctrine on immigration because it is an insult and disrespectful towards legally registered immigrants. The non-registered immigration population violated immigration law. However, mass deportation is impractical. The comprehensive reform prescribed to modernize the present immigration system is actually necessary to ensure due process and equality of law. The 1986 immigration law was a mistake because there was no enforcement method. The principle reason that the Hispanic vote is preponderantly Democratic is because the Hispanic community trusts the Democratic Party on education, health care, economy/jobs, civil rights, immigration, plus the role of government.
@ Justin…Reagan supported Apartheid…republicans voted against the MLK bill..Herman Cain didnt last for one vote and he was only there for window dressing…The GOP has ONE Black member of the GOP congress , its the year 2012 and the GOP can’t get anymore than one Black member of congress…??? …The GOP also has the racist tea party and of course the voter suppression tactics that backfired on the GOP badly…by the way , racism in the GOP has been around for decades…peep this…
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his autobiography:
“The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism.”
That was his description of the 1964 Republican National Convention. He also referred to the Republican convention as “the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right.”
What’s sad is that people like you will still try to deny the obvious racism and still wonder why you don’t get support for the GOP in not only the Black community but the Asian and Hispanic communities as well…Time to admit the truth…STOP THE RACISM…and then we can talk about minoroties voting for republicams….
I respect crystal right to voice her opinions but girlfriend you and other far right black republicans do yourself as well as the republican party no justice. You need to seriously go back and read up on true black republicans and what the party and they stood for. this current Republican party has no tolerance for you your race, gender etc. furthermore it has no clue as to what all majority of Americans want. The way you defend and do the get along shuffle for the GOP in its current state is very shameful. You need as I stated a history lesson of blacks who were in the GOP way before the GOP stopped welcoming true equality and minoritys. Martin Luther King would turn over in his grave he were alive today and saw how todays blacks as well as those in the GOP are. STOP BEING THE GOP HOUSE N_____PLEASE!! IF you are doing it for the MONEY well say so.
I have noticed the public does not know much about immigration. Please do not disseminate inaccurate information about the system.
1) Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is not Amnesty. The media has made that mistake. It does not confer lawful permanent residency or citizenship for the youth who benefit from the program. There is no path for acquisition of either status. All it does is guarantee no deportation for 2 years and provide employment authorization for those two years. ICE was not going to deport these kids under any administration because of financial and manpower concerns anyway. Additionally, this program did not only affect Hispanics, but South Koreans and other ethnicities who met the criteria. Let’s not reduce the debate to ethnic hysteria.
2) Immigration reform is not possible without amnesty. Even though it is in the best interests of many to deport all who are here illegally it is not pragmatic. It would cost billions of dollars and manpower that we do not have and those people will cross right back. Instead, we must secure our borders, legalize those who are already here (not criminals) and that way we are not in the same position in 10 years.