Thread: Cruz Immigration Crusade Has Republicans Fretting Over Backlash

The Hispanic vote gets a lot of discussion, but it is never specific on the legal Hispanic vote vs the illegals that are Hispanic that are voting illegally.
Cruz Immigration Crusade Has Republicans Fretting Over Backlash
Thursday, 15 Jan 2015 06:47 AM

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas wants to clamp down on illegal immigration, saying it’s a winning issue with many voters.

Some of his fellow Republicans fret that the party could end up losing big in Cruz’s home state.

Cruz and his allies want to roll back President Barack Obama’s November orders easing deportations. The U.S. House yesterday took the first step to undo Obama’s plan and to start sending home children the president protected in a 2012 order as well.

Lawmakers and strategists from both parties say the campaign could feed an anti-immigrant narrative even in Republican-leaning states including Texas with swelling populations of Hispanics, who tend to vote Democratic.

“The Democrats are betting on Republicans shooting themselves in the foot,” said Hector Barajas, a Republican strategist. “Even for Hispanics who aren’t in fear of being deported, the big question is: ‘Why are they picking on us?’”

Barajas said the effort was reminiscent of former Republican California Governor Pete Wilson’s support two decades ago for a ballot initiative barring undocumented immigrants from using state-funded social services. The backlash among Hispanics has helped Democrats dominate the state for a generation.

“It could have some devastating effects for Republicans,” said Barajas, who advised Republican Meg Whitman in her losing 2010 gubernatorial campaign in California and says Democrats still use Wilson’s image in political advertising in that state.

‘Tidal Wave’

Cruz, a 44-year-old freshman whose father was born in Cuba, rejects any suggestion that the campaign could backfire by electrifying Hispanic voters in states like Texas, which has been reliably Republican since the 1980s.

“The Democrats said that before November as well,” he said in an interview. “It proved correct: It did mobilize voters -- and we saw a historic tidal wave of an election that was a referendum on executive amnesty.”

Still, Texas’s demography -- 38 percent of the state is Hispanic -- illustrates the political risks for Republicans. Almost 3 million eligible Hispanic voters didn’t go to the polls in 2012, and both parties need their support.

Some Republican lawmakers say that angering those voters could upend the electoral map. The concern is that Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, and his backers -- who tried last year to defund part of the government to stop Obama’s orders -- will drown out the voices of party members who want broad immigration changes.

‘Most Obnoxious’

“More responsible voices need to speak up and try to frame that debate rather than just surrender the field to the shrillest and most obnoxious,” said Texas’s other U.S. senator, John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber. “It’s not representative of the party,'' he said referring to some of Cruz's House allies.

While no one says that Texas, the second-most-populous state, will break for Democrats as quickly as California did after 1994, the immigration debate has the potential to lay the groundwork for future success.

The Latino Victory Project recently brought together grassroots activists for a gathering in Arizona to mark the 20th anniversary of California’s Proposition 187. The group is working to disseminate information about Obama’s orders through phone calls, social media and Spanish-language television.

It also has an ad campaign ready to go for “the right moment” when Republicans ramp up their rhetoric, said Cristobal Alex, the group’s president.

Texas “is the biggest prize,” he said. The demographic growth, coupled with Republican attacks on immigration, “is the perfect recipe for building political power,” he said.

“We’ve been looking carefully at the Prop 187 springboard effect,” Alex said. “It changed California politics forever.”

Containing Cruz

Republican leaders, eager to prevent that from happening in other states, aren’t well-positioned to contain members like Cruz.

After 2010, many Republican-run state legislatures redrew congressional districts, making them less racially diverse. That puts less pressure on many Republicans to go along with their national party’s goal of reaching out to Hispanics.

Even as House Speaker John Boehner allowed the vote this week on a sweeping rollback of Obama’s orders, his staff has been working to convince individual members they need to engage more of these voters.

Boehner squeezed through an annual spending bill late last year by promising to use his newly expanded majority to retaliate against Obama’s orders. Cruz will hold Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to that.
Intraparty Fight

Republican congressional leaders leery of an intraparty battle are offering small-government Tea Party lawmakers a largely symbolic vote since Obama would veto it.

Cruz and Republicans including Representative Steve King of Iowa -- who once characterized most undocumented immigrants as drug runners with calves the size of cantaloupes -- say they see through this strategy. It is, they say, an effort to mollify them before proceeding to pro-immigration priorities like expanding high-skilled worker visas.

Republicans will try to attach a rollback of Obama’s orders to any legislation that moves through Congress, keeping the issue alive, said Representative Louie Gohmert, an outspoken critic of undocumented immigration.

“If we’re not able to stop the president’s amnesty, we can’t possibly move on to anything else,” said Gohmert, who has represented his northeast Texas district for a decade.

Hard Task

It will be no simple task for Democrats to capitalize on the immigration issue in Texas.

Unlike California 20 years ago, Texas has little of the infrastructure to organize Democratic voters, including strong labor unions. And there are leading Republicans from the state - - including former President George W. Bush and former Governor Rick Perry -- who have taken softer stances on immigration. In California, Wilson was the dominant voice, making him an easier target for Democrats.

Getting Hispanics to participate in elections is another challenge: Texas has a lower Hispanic voter-turnout rate -- 39 percent -- compared with the 48 percent national average. And Democrats enjoy a narrower advantage in the socially conservative state than in others. Newly elected Republican Governor Greg Abbott took 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in November. That compares with the 27 percent that Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney carried nationally in 2012.

Cruz himself says he got 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2012 election.

‘Get Serious’

“I was unambiguously opposed to amnesty,” he said. “There is a lot of bipartisan agreement among Texans on immigration,” specifically “that we’ve got to get serious about border security,” Cruz said.

Texas is “a higher mountain to climb,” said Frank Sharry, who heads America’s Voice, a pro-immigration policy group. “It’s inevitable, but I’m less optimistic about the short-term timeframes that people predict.”

Still, the potential for Democrats in Texas is vast.

Hispanics represented 28 percent of all eligible Texas voters in 2012. Their share of the electorate will grow to 31 percent by 2016, according to the Center for American Progress, a Washington policy group aligned with Democrats.

A November 2014 poll by Latino Decisions showed that 51 percent of Hispanics consider themselves Democrats, while 18 percent identify as Republicans and 17 percent as independents.

“Is the potential there for Texas to go purple?” said Patrick Oakford, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. “Absolutely, it’s just a question of getting people out to the polls.”

As in California in the 1990s, much of the Texas Hispanic population is young and has yet to solidify its party preferences.“You’ve got a lot of those people who are now the middle class of America and still remember that Proposition 187,” Barajas said. “A lot of them are Democrats and a lot of them are Democrats because of Pete Wilson.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ted.../15/id/618707/

California Proposition 187 (also known as the Save Our State (SOS) initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal aliens from using health care, public education, and other social services in the U.S. State of California. Voters passed the proposed law as a referendum in November 1994. The law was challenged in a legal suit and found unconstitutional by a federal court. In 1999, Governor Gray Davis halted state appeals against the ruling.

Passage of Proposition 187 reflected state residents' concerns about illegal immigration into the United States and the large Hispanic population in California. Opponents believed the law was discriminatory against immigrants of Hispanic or Asian origin; supporters generally insisted that their concerns were economic: that the state could not afford to provide social services for so many illegal residents.^[1][2]

Above are the facts about Proposition 187. Voters elected Pete Wilson, a Republican, to stop illegal immigration. Voters approved proposition 187 which was part of a solution by at least refusing California state-funded benefits to illegal aliens. It was a court, not the voters of California, that rejected Proposition 187. Pete Wilson was elected to 2 terms as Governor, and was one of the most effective and accomplished Governors of California. Gray Davis, a Democrat, was elected after Pete Wilson, but was recalled for failing to take the Proposition 187 to a higher court on appeal, and was replaced by a Republican, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, who was elected twice.

The "strategists" telling Republicans that they must sell-out American Citizens in support of illegal aliens to win elections are wrong, and they are so wrong that one must ask why do they deceive the facts with claims like this:

Lawmakers and strategists from both parties say the campaign could feed an anti-immigrant narrative even in Republican-leaning states including Texas with swelling populations of Hispanics, who tend to vote Democratic.

“The Democrats are betting on Republicans shooting themselves in the foot,” said Hector Barajas, a Republican strategist. “Even for Hispanics who aren’t in fear of being deported, the big question is: ‘Why are they picking on us?’”

Barajas said the effort was reminiscent of former Republican California Governor Pete Wilson’s support two decades ago for a ballot initiative barring undocumented immigrants from using state-funded social services. The backlash among Hispanics has helped Democrats dominate the state for a generation.

“It could have some devastating effects for Republicans,” said Barajas, who advised Republican Meg Whitman in her losing 2010 gubernatorial campaign in California and says Democrats still use Wilson’s image in political advertising in that state.

Ted Cruz is right and Barajas is completely wrong. Meg Whitman lost her race for Governor because she was caught hiring illegal aliens which made her look two-faced on the issue. If she hadn't hired an illegal alien and been caught doing so, she would probably have been a two-term Republican Governor of California, but she did hire one and she did get caught during a campaign. Beware to any Republican hiring illegal aliens to clean their house and run their errands. Not only do you deserve to lose a political race, you should be punished under US immigration law. And, blaming your spouse isn't going to fly. Ask Meg about that one, or on a different issue of gifts, ask Bob McDonnell in Virginia who tried to blame his wife for his inappropriate gifts from donors. Voters are not forgiving on these issues.

Republicans may not win the White House in 2016, but if we don't, it will not be because of the Hispanic Vote, the Latino Vote, or because our candidates are standing up for the American Voter and US Citizens against illegal immigration and excess legal immigration, it will likely be due to the Pro-Life stance of our candidates which costs us the women vote because we aren't standing up for them, which at the end of the day is why Romney lost to Obama.

Cruz seems to be a huge irritation to the media. It doesn't seem a week goes by with out an illegal alien supporting journalist writing a hit piece on him.

Another pro amnesty article from Newsmax!

W

This story is a very good demonstration of why two party politics is wrong for the nation! Instead of concerning themselves with what is good for the nation, they are concerned about powerful parties, both of those parties. Especially on this issue since 1986 both parties have performed as anti-American parties, so now they are concerned about a bloc of voters that should nnot have but a small voice, not to be an endangerment large enough to challenge our Constitution. How dim-wittted of a performance this past three decades have we allowed?

Originally Posted by kevinssdad

This story is a very good demonstration of why two party politics is wrong for the nation! Instead of concerning themselves with what is good for the nation, they are concerned about powerful parties, both of those parties. Especially on this issue since 1986 both parties have performed as anti-American parties, so now they are concerned about a bloc of voters that should nnot have but a small voice, not to be an endangerment large enough to challenge our Constitution. How dim-wittted of a performance this past three decades have we allowed?

Exactly. How stupid have we been? And, unfortunately, it's a stupid that's hard to fix, because just about the time we think "oh there's one I'll vote for", not but a few days or weeks after the election do we realize "oops, damn it, another one got in with my vote."

From now on, we have to be even more vigilant and hope better candidates come out of the woodwork to vote for. So far, most of these candidates are like silly putty, they reshape themselves to look different from the ones we don't want or want out of office if they're already in, and then once elected, remold themselves into the same thing we just rejected. It's very difficult these days to select good candidates because of this. Used to be the party lines kept them in line, but today the party lines have all gone offshore with our companies and are more worried about enforcing the law against non-citizens than citizens, helping foreign businesses instead of our own, and could frankly care less about our borders, sovereignty or liberty.

The media is big talking about the Hispanic vote, no so much about the legal Hispanic vote. I like Cruz and when I read the "hit piece" articles I find that agree with him,not the argument.

Originally Posted by Judy

The "strategists" telling Republicans that they must sell-out American Citizens in support of illegal aliens to win elections are wrong, and they are so wrong that one must ask why do they deceive the facts....

Yep.

Hispanics would like a resolution to the problem of illegal aliens, but a poll which was posted here fairly recently showed that they are increasingly in favor of enforcement. That's probably because they've figured out that their children and their grandchildren will be in competition with desperate illegals.

The only people who are solidly in favor of amnesty for illegals are Democrat politicians, the Republican leadership in Congress, and Zuckerberg et. al.. The Repub leadership and the Open Border folks want to undermine American sovereignty, so that the United States can be run for the convenience of corporations.
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Americans first in this magnificent country

Americans jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Originally Posted by vistalad

Yep.

Hispanics would like a resolution to the problem of illegal aliens, but a poll which was posted here fairly recently showed that they are increasingly in favor of enforcement. That's probably because they've figured out that their children and their grandchildren will be in competition with desperate illegals.

The only people who are solidly in favor of amnesty for illegals are Democrat politicians, the Republican leadership in Congress, and Zuckerberg et. al.. The Repub leadership and the Open Border folks want to undermine American sovereignty, so that the United States can be run for the convenience of corporations.
********************************
Americans first in this magnificent country

Americans jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Absolutely! Yes for the convenience of corporations and don't forget the cartels engaged in illegal enterprises like the illegal drug trade, human smuggling and so forth. I've always thought the Republicans claiming they need illegal immigration to get the Hispanic Vote were full of crap. After all, why would any American, including Americans of Hispanic or Latino descent, give a damn about illegal aliens regardless of their origin? That would like me with some Irish in me wanting to flood our nation with tens of millions of illegal aliens because Irish illegals are here. It's ridiculous! I would no more want illegal Irish here than illegal Chinese or Mexicans or Guatemalans. So why do people think Hispanics would?

To me that's just cover talk for politicians on the take with the cartels to keep the borders open, the drugs flowing and a steady stream of illegals pouring in to run these illegal trades.

I do have to ask, "What are legal immigrants of same nationality doing to control illegal immigrants of their nationality?"

I ask because in the '60's civil rights struggle I lived in a town of 10k souls, which included two families of the minority raising the ruckus. When another family of their minority moved into town, the two minority heads of household previously living there made a call upon the new family with a message. The message included that they were successful business owners well respected in town, and that would still be the case when the new family left town. If it had not been for the news, that town would never known that there was racial strife in America!

I wonder if citizen Hispanics in the USA made similar calls upon illegals? I am doubtful if they did. because those two gentlemen business owners assured the community that they would police their own! The results were obvious by the lack of racial strife in our town and their town!! I will always remember fondly Clarence and Otis, they cut my hair many, many times.

Clarence and Otis demonstrated clearly that if you are not a part of the solution, then you surely are a part of the problem! They also displayed that respect is earned.