Thread: FL: Rubio finesses immigration issue

Rubio finesses immigration issue

By Christine Armario ASSOCIATED PRESS

5:53 p.m., Sunday, June 6, 2010

MIAMI | At a boutique hotel in Miami's upscale Coral Gables neighborhood, members of a Republican women's group smile and gush as Senate candidate Marco Rubio enters the room. A Spanish-language television reporter approaches with a microphone.

What is the candidate's stance on the Arizona immigration law? Does he favor amnesty for undocumented immigrants?

"I don't support amnesty," Mr. Rubio says. "I support a legal immigration system."

A Cuban-American lawyer and former state House speaker, the 39-year-old Mr. Rubio has captured the attention of national Republicans hoping to attract Hispanic voters, a majority of whom voted for President Obama in 2008.

But it's among Hispanic voters that some of Mr. Rubio's conservative positions could prove most problematic.

Last fall, he opposed the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, the country's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, saying he had concerns about her case history and testimony on issues such as the Second Amendment right to bear arms. He opposes counting undocumented immigrants in the U.S. census and providing them a pathway to citizenship.

He suggested in an interview with a conservative publication, Human Events, that even illegal immigrant children who have spent most of their lives in the U.S. shouldn't be allowed to stay. He later told the Associated Press: "Young children have to go wherever their parents are."

And after initially expressing concerns about Arizona's immigration law, the nation's toughest, Mr. Rubio reversed his position and came out in support, saying subsequent changes aimed at preventing racial profiling have greatly improved it.

"Most people, what they know about Marco Rubio is that he's a young, well-spoken guy who's Hispanic," said Rep. Juan Zapata, a Republican state representative in Florida who was born in Colombia and supports Mr. Rubio's rival Gov. Charlie Crist, a onetime Republican now running for the Senate as a independent. "People don't know the details."

Mr. Zapata said that the Hispanic community would love to support a Latino candidate but that Mr. Rubio's views don't further the causes of Hispanic voters.

"I've known him for a long time and I've worked with him and I'm terribly disappointed in the positions he's taken," he said.

Ana Gomez Mallada, a Republican Cuban-American who is supporting Mr. Rubio, said his stance on the Arizona law is "probably irrelevant" with Cuban-American voters.

"Will it hurt him with other segments of the Spanish-speaking voters? Probably, but not too many," Ms. Mallada said. "A lot of segments of Hispanics voters are Democrats anyway and would not vote for Marco anyhow."

Both of Mr. Rubio's opponents, Mr. Crist and the Democratic front-runner, Rep. Kendrick Meek, oppose the Arizona law.

Mr. Meek, a former Florida Highway Patrol trooper, called the law intrusive and said it wasn't fair to ask law enforcement "to judge a book by its cover." He said that Mr. Rubio changed his position in order to appeal to the far right of the Republican Party and that a law like Arizona's would be wrong for Florida and "wrong for a segment of people that would take great pride in his election."

Mr. Rubio says he is pro-immigrant and doesn't believe his viewpoints on immigration are out of line with constituents.

"I think Hispanic voters in America are in favor of the laws being followed," he said in an interview.

Hispanic voters have often voted along ethnic lines, but they also have shown a willingness at times to oppose Latino candidates.

In 2001, Latino voters in Houston - mostly Democratic Mexican-Americans - supported Orlando Sanchez, a Cuban-American mayoral candidate who ran as a conservative Republican. Five years later, Republican Henry Bonilla, a Mexican-American incumbent running for Congress in Texas, lost to a Democratic challenger, also Hispanic, in part because Latino voters felt Mr. Bonilla was out of touch with their viewpoints, some even calling him "Henry Vanilla."

Former Sen. Mel Martinez, a Cuban-American Republican whose seat Mr. Rubio is vying to fill, said the GOP needs to highlight aspects of its beliefs that are consistent with the views of Latino voters. Latinos tend to be strongly religious, to oppose abortion and to tilt to the right on social issues.

"I think our party speaks to the hopes and wishes of many Hispanic values," Mr. Martinez said.

Others say linking conservative values to conservative politics won't necessarily translate into votes.

"We're conservative, but we vote liberal" is the cliche among Mexican-American voters in Texas, said Tatcho Mindiola, director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston.

"I think that race, ethnicity, whatever term you use to call it, is a very important factor in these elections, especially for minority groups," Mr. Mindiola said. "The question is always how much of a factor these elements play."

Florida has long been the exception among Latino voters. Whereas most Latinos in other states vote Democratic, in Florida a strong bloc of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans has traditionally voted Republican. That is changing, with younger generations and more recent immigrants trending Democratic and Cuban-Americans representing a smaller proportion of the Latino electorate.

Mr. Rubio said his message to the Latino community is one of economic empowerment.

He also said he wants a federal solution to illegal immigration that would focus first on securing the border and at some point employment enforcement.

www.washingtontimes.com

I just don't get why Citizens of Hispanic descent would want to flood our country with Illegal Immigrants of any ethnic/racial group ??

Don't they realize it hurts them too ?