Thread: Sponsor Of AZ Copycat Legislation Says It’s ‘Naive’ To

From: Wonk Room

Last week, Colorado state Sen. Kent Lambert (R) introduced an Arizona copycat immigration bill. Last night, in an interview with CNN’s John King, Lambert defended his proposed legislation and denied that the GOP will face any substantial political implications for being the party behind the vicious anti-immigrant legislation that is being proposed throughout the nation:

KING: Senator, do you worry at all about the long-term prospects for the Republican Party? The political implications of this? I understand you stand by your law on principle. You believe it’s the right thing to do, but your state now has a 21 percent, 20.3 percent of Colorado’s population is Latino. You know the demographic growth. Not just in your state, but across the United States. Do you have any concerns, it’s essentially the Karl Rove question on immigration, that you will do generational damage to the Republican Party by pushing these proposals?

LAMBERT: Well, again, I think that’s really naive. We’ve seen the polling in Arizona, where Arizona 1070 was passed. It was passed on a wide bipartisan basis. The people, the Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Hispanic, more than 50 percent of them all support Arizona bill 1070. Also, Jan Brewer, the governor, won by a landslide after signing that legislation. So the people of the United States want this law.

Certainly, I think the man on the street in Colorado wants to see, first of all, enforcement of our borders. Second, we want to enforce the current laws that we have on the books. Right now the federal government’s not doing that, and it’s time for the states, as many states are doing right now, take on the responsibility that they have for enforcing the law.

Watch it:

Lambert may think it’s naive, but not all of his Republican colleagues agree. It is naive to assume that the 2011 Inaugural Conference of the conservative Hispanic Leadership Network wasn’t in part an attempt by some Republicans to improve their party’s image amongst Latinos after the highly charged debate that Arizona’s immigration law sparked last year. Alfonso Aguilar, a conference participant and the executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, told NPR: “Latinos are inherently conservative: They’re socially conservative; they are entrepreneurial; they’re pro-business. Immigration…is that one issue that prevents us from winning the support of Latino voters.â€

[quote]“[E]verything, absolutely everything, should be subordinated to rebuilding the economy and we repubs should own the issue.â€

So they mention half the the countries growth (population) has been due to latino's. Illegal invasion is not growth. Theres nothing to worry about if they fix the problems and abuses and deport all illegals. Many legal hispanics support fixing these problems and deporting illegals because they give legal hispanics who came legally a bad name.

Get rid of the illegals and their anchors and more likely the legal remaining hispanics may end up siding with the group who rids us of the illegal invasion.