Thread: Election immigration debate turning 'offensive'

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15274875.htm

Posted on Tue, Aug. 15, 2006


CAMPAIGN 2006
Election immigration debate turning 'offensive'
From questions posed on the campaign trail to talk radio, many Hispanic Republicans are worried the 'mean-spirited' discussion about immigration could harm their party.
BY MARC CAPUTO
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

The caller to the talk-radio show discussing ''the illegal-alien invasion'' listed the three strikes against Republican Will McBride's campaign for the U.S. Senate:

``You're a lawyer for one thing. You're young. And you're Hispanic.''

That last comment troubled McBride -- partly because it's true. For the 34-year-old son of a Mexican field worker has found he's campaigning against GOP icon Katherine Harris, two other little-known candidates and an insidious challenge: the ''offensive'' tone over immigration from a minority of Republicans.

And it worries not just McBride, but also Republican leaders seeking to protect the GOP's historic gains with Hispanics. Polls show Hispanics nationwide moved 32 percentage points in the GOP's favor over the past three presidential elections -- the nation's largest demographic electoral shift.

This trend could slow or perhaps reverse after this campaign season's debate over immigration, which the Republican-controlled Congress raised amid bad news of lobbying scandals and Iraq. One Democratic poll says that, for the first time, Hispanic voters rank ''discrimination'' as their second-highest concern, behind immigration.

Florida Hispanics vote more for the GOP owing to the Cuban-American influence rooted, among other things, in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. But Hispanic Republican lawmakers here sense trouble, and have had the problem mulled by focus groups.

''People do notice and are very aware of the mean-spirited nature of the whole debate,'' said Miami state Rep. Juan Zapata, the only Florida legislator of Colombian descent.

``It seems extremists have taken this to promote their agenda. People are listening to this. And an issue like this will bear scars or good will for years to come.''

The debate now breaks along two lines in Washington. Senate bill supporters want to create a ''path to citizenship'' for ''undocumented workers.'' Supporters of the House bill -- opposed by all three Cuban-American representatives in Florida -- want more border walls and deportations, decrying the Senate's costly ''amnesty'' plan for the 11 million ``illegals.''

''We can't afford that from an economic standpoint or a security standpoint,'' U.S. Rep. Harris, a House bill supporter, said in a standard stump speech at a North Redington Beach Republican women's forum with McBride and candidates LeRoy Collins and Peter Monroe. The primary election is Sept. 5.

Harris warned the crowd that the Senate bill ''gives them more rights and privileges than you and I have. How many of you would like to only pay three of the last five years in taxes and decide which of those three you would like to do?'' The audience chuckled.

And she asked if it was fair for ``those illegals . . . to attend our universities at state resident rates? Or be entitled to years of social security that they earned illegally?''

TOUGH QUESTIONS

During a question-and-answer period, McBride was hit with this: How can he say he opposes amnesty when he appeared at a May 1 march with Immigrants United for Freedom, a group that finds the Senate bill too harsh? McBride, a personal-injury lawyer and sometime-immigration attorney, said he helped people there because he's bilingual and knows the law.

Then came this question to McBride from a woman named Jackie Brownhill, a Harris volunteer who later told The Miami Herald that the campaign put her up to it: Why did you change your last name from ''Rodriguez?'' Brownhill later said McBride ''doesn't look American,'' according to the St. Petersburg Times.

''I found it highly offensive. I found it to be an attack on my heritage. I was insulted,'' said McBride, noting no one in his family was named Rodriguez. ``It was something to show I was Hispanic -- and that somehow it would be a negative.''

But he acknowledges such tactics wouldn't be used if they weren't viewed as effective.

Democrats say this debate could have the same effect nationally that the anti-immigration Proposition 187 had in California, which inflamed Hispanics and made the state more Democratic.

''This is Prop. 187 on steroids,'' said Joe Garcia, the former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation who now heads Hispanic outreach for the Washington-based New Democratic Network.

''The fascinating thing is this has brought the xenophobes out of the closet. The tone is ugly and scary and it has clashed with President Bush's drive for openness,'' Garcia said.

``Why do you think Bush has fought this from some of the nuts of his own party in the House? This could reverse all of his gains.''

From 2000 to 2004, Bush increased his share of the Florida Hispanic vote from 49 percent to 56 percent, according to the state GOP's exit polling data.

Though Garcia says he disagrees with those numbers, he says polls point to a general Republican success nationwide when it comes to Hispanics: 40 percent voted for the Republican in 2004 compared to only 21 percent in 1996. During the same period, support for Democratic presidential candidates dropped from 72 percent to 59 percent.

President Bush furthered the gains with an aggressive bilingual outreach campaign that includes Spanish-fluent Gov. Jeb Bush and appeals even more to new citizens. The Democratic Network's polls show George W. Bush came within just four percentage points of John Kerry when it came to voters in Spanish-dominant households.

And some Hispanics are more conservative than Bush on immigration. Consider Eduardo Montalvo, an Osceola County school board candidate from Venezuela, who fretted in a Spanish-language paper about the ``subversive attack from the Third World [that brings] poverty, violence, crime and prostitution.''

Montalvo was savaged for his opinions.

He said: ``if you talk about this issue, you will have problems with Hispanic voters. Hispanic voters will not support you.''

A new poll of 600 Spanish-speaking voters from the Democratic Network bears this out, showing for the first time that Spanish-language voters are acutely concerned about discrimination and that, if a presidential election were held today, Democrats would enjoy a 36 percentage-point lead among Spanish speakers.

Miami state Rep. David Rivera, a top advisor to incoming state House Speaker Marco Rubio of Miami, said he's concerned enough that he has introduced the immigration issue at focus groups convened as part of Rubio's 100 Ideas forum.

CHANGING ATTITUDES

Rivera said attitudes change when ``you tell people that without the cheap labor we have now, a head of lettuce would cost $5 or a house could cost $50,000 more . . . or that these are the people who pick your tomatoes, clean bed pans and build roofs, so why don't they belong here?''

Rivera said it's ''incumbent'' on Hispanic leaders to bring these points up, and he praised the president and U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, a Harris supporter who helped craft the Senate bill that she now trashes because Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson voted for it.

On talk radio shows, such as Bud Hedinger's in Orlando, Martinez's efforts have been a disappointment.

In talking about McBride's Hispanic heritage July 26, Hedinger noted it 'can cut both ways. You may be attractive to the Hispanic vote, which is growing by leaps and bounds. But there are other people here who are concerned about the `illegal-alien' invasion and are uncomfortable with the way Mel Martinez flipped on his tough stand against the illegals before he was in office, versus where he is now.''

Rank-and-file Republicans like Claudia Platt are so upset with Martinez that she waved protest signs last month when he endorsed GOP governor candidate Charlie Crist, the state's attorney general. Platt said Martinez was captive to immigrant-rights' groups and big business, which relies on the cheap labor.

And that, she said, is when it hit her: ``I know the Democrats are laughing themselves all the way to the washroom.''

You may be attractive to the Hispanic vote, which is growing by leaps and bounds. But there are other people here who are concerned about the `illegal-alien' invasion a

Nice of them to notice that there are "others" out there. I'm getting tired of being a non-entity.

Email Title, Biased Article

Mr. CAPUTO:

Could you find NO sources that would take issue with your article's false claim that most Hispanics favor laws that help illegal aliens?

William Gheen
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC
www.alipac.us

Rivera said attitudes change when ``you tell people that without the cheap labor we have now, a head of lettuce would cost $5 or a house could cost $50,000 more . . . or that these are the people who pick your tomatoes, clean bed pans and build roofs, so why don't they belong here?''

I don't remember where, but I know I've seen a couples studies that dispute Rivera's claim that lettuce would cost $5.00 a head and that houses would cost $50,000 more. This is just pro-illegal rhetoric that has no substance. It is funny how these people say what ever they want with no factual data to support their comments.

For the record, my family and I can live without lettuce if necessary.

Huh? Re-read the story and please point to this statement that "most Hispanics favor laws that help illegal aliens."
The story's topic: Hispanics are concerned with the tone of the debate.


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Marc,

Hispanics are not concerned with the tone of the debate. They are concerned about a backlash as a negative result of illegal immigration.

We know from numerous polls and observed votes in elections that close to half of America's legal Hispanic population oppose illegal immigration just like the core Conservatives do in the US Congress.

This is a fact. To read your article, you would think that most Hispanics are reacting to the restriction measures advocated by Republican candidates and this is not true.

Our organization enjoys the support of many Hispanics and you have mischaracterized the issue in your article. The majority of non-Hispanic Americans are concerned about the negative impacts of illegal immigration more than any ethnic factors.

William Gheen
AMERICANS FOR LEGAL IMMIGRATION PAC
Post Office Box 30966, Raleigh, NC 27622-0966
Tel: (919) 787-6009 Toll Free: (866) 329-3999
FEC ID: C00405878

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obviously, you have a bias. And when one doesn't share the bias, you accuse them of bias.

Your bias blinds you to what's in front of you. You see what you want to see. And obviously, you don't hear what a lot of Hispanics hear: The "mean spirited" tone of the debate from a "minority" of Republicans. It's in the article. You just didn't bother reading it before you fired from the hip.

And some people who are less educated and circumspect than you (but have the same blind and biased passion) have a tendency to sound prejudice. That's what bothers many Hispanics.

As for your polls, I believe most americans oppose almost anything illegal -- whether it's about immigration to theft. Duh.

I couldn't fit this into my article, but here's Jack Kemp, former VP candidate for REpublicans, at an Orlando summit this weekend:
"Don’t allow our party to be turned into a xenophobic anti-immigrant. We are a nation of immigrants. We stand on their shoulders. I’m not suggesting we open our borders. Close the border, but let’s recognize that this is a nation of immigrants and no better proof of that is what’s happened to Miami since the late 1950s.’’

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Jack Kemp is a Globalist willing to sell out America and her laws and citizens on this issue.

Of course I am biased in the sense I represent an opinion. That is my job and that is clearly indicated as the role of my organization.

You, on the other hand, are not supposed to engage in bias as a reporter. Your articles should give balance to opposing sides of this issue. You have not done this.

I just read your article a third time.

Your article is clearly biased because you two sources from the enforcement side Harris and Platt with four sources from the pro illegal immigration camp. You also give the illegal alien supporters much more text space than our side.

Aside from your 2 to 1 bias in favor of one view, you site a poll of Spanish speaking voters and ignore all of the other polls and actual VOTES in 2004 on this issue?

Yes, I am biased and Yes you are biased, but I'm not the one violating the ethics of my field to do so. You do the readers, the public, your profession, and the political process a great diservice when you abandon the ethics of journalism in an attempt to influence opinions with biased articles like this.

William Gheen
ALIPAC
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The story is not about the facts of the debate. It's not about the legislation. It's not about who's right and wrong. It's about the tone of a wedge issue. The fact that you say there are "four sources from the pro illegal immigration camp" is not only absurd (Zapata), it just doesn't take into account what's written.

Again, I note your sloppiness: you totally missed Hedinger. So that brings the "anti" side up to 3. So let's re-cap: your first note to me was factually incorrect and now this one is too. I really shouldn't bother talking with you any more, it's like discussing the subject of ice with a summer insect or algebra with a toddler. I may as well be speaking another language.

Funny thing, I wrote about the wedge issue of Israel benefitting Republicans, but I never heard from you. I guess your blog or google alerts don't hone in on things like that. Or maybe your subscription to our Florida paper didn't reach your corner of the Carolinas that day. I'll pass it on to our circulation department.

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We only monitor immigration issues and Israel is not our issue. Your description of the tone of the issue is inaccurate and you make every attempt to make it appear people have a problem with Hispanics instead of the hundreds of reasons people are upset about illegal immigration.

Your attempts to distort this issue will do very little good since 80+% of the audience is on the enforcement side of the issue.

We were not sure if we wanted to get involved in this race, but I am now forwarding this biased article to our board. Perhaps we will send in a few thousand dollars to help Harris overcome attack articles like this one.

I will send you a copy of the press release should we decide to enter the race.

William Gheen
ALIPAC

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Thanks. I'll look forward to your letter. Have a nice day.

Good job W. But look very carefully at Harris she pretends to be tough on illegal immigration but really is not.

Unfortunately here in Florida our choices are slim and slimmer. Nelson clearly needs to go but there is not much better on the other side of the aisle. The best we can do is vote Nelson out just to get a point across and hope the newbie does not do too much damage before we can get them out of office too.

Though Garcia says he disagrees with those numbers, he says polls point to a general Republican success nationwide when it comes to Hispanics: 40 percent voted for the Republican in 2004 compared to only 21 percent in 1996. During the same period, support for Democratic presidential candidates dropped from 72 percent to 59 percent.

That still means 60% aren't voting for Republicans. If the Republican Party wants to sacrifice a large portion of it's base for a minority of potential Hispanic votes, good luck.

I really shouldn't bother talking with you any more, it's like discussing the subject of ice with a summer insect or algebra with a toddler. I may as well be speaking another language.

Notice how the left always reverts to name calling when they're loosing the debate.

It always amazes me that can't wrap their feeble, biased minds around the word illegal or separate it from LEGAL. They lump the bank robbers and the bank depositers all together, when the conversation is about the robbers.

After reading that one story here where that Latino guy said they would vote for people that look like them...I will not vote for any new foreigner....and sorry guys, will never vote for a Muslim.