Thread: Martinez's Warning to Republicans About I.A. Issue

Martinez's Warning to Republicans

By Jerry Kammer, October 7, 2009

As someone who lived in Arizona in the 1990s, when a large influx of illegal immigrants were met with a backlash that continues today, I agree with the warning from recently retired GOP Sen. Mel Martinez in today's Washington Post. It comes in a column from Michael Gerson, who writes of the electoral risks to Republicans if they are associated with virulent criticism of illegal immigrants.

"There are lots of Hispanics to the right of you and me on immigration," Martinez told Gerson, a fellow advocate of "comprehensive immigration reform," i.e., amnesty and increased immigration. "But they think, 'Republicans just don’t like us.'" Martinez went on to say that some Republicans in elective office have made "pretty divisive use of immigration policy. It is more a matter of tone, of how you talk about immigrants. It has made Hispanics feel unwelcome, unwanted."

Many of my Mexican-American neighbors in Arizona resented the illegal influx from Mexico, which imposed strains on their neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals and helped employers keep wages low. Exit polls in the 2004 elections showed that 47 percent of the Hispanic voters had supported Arizona's Proposition 200 -- an attempt to deny certain services to illegal immigrants -- even though it had been branded as anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic in a well-funded campaign supported by nearly the entire political and business establishment.

But many of those neighbors resented, in more visceral way, the highly personalized attacks on illegal immigrants that came from some Arizonans, including former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who is cited in today's column by Gerson. In their view, much of that criticism seemed motivated more by considerations of race that by concerns about the effects of illegal immigration.

Many Arizonans believe that Hayworth did not lose his seat in 2006 because of his opposition to illegal immigration. After all, the campaign of victorious Democrat Harry Mitchell featured an ad that charged: "The number of illegal immigrants in our state has increased 400 percent during his tenure in Congress." Those Arizonans believe Hayworth lost because he consistently seemed to be angry, volatile, and generally unpleasant to have around.

The Arizona Republic newspaper cited Hayworth's "obnoxious 'alpha male' antics." The paper quoted a former staffer who said Hayworth had morphed from "the big, boisterous guy who listens" to someone who was "just angry, angry, angry."

"Mitchell is a very likeable, grandfatherly presence who was running against just the opposite,'" another Arizonan told the Republic. "Hayworth is a very bombastic, conservative champion who can be intimidating."

Arizona's Hispanics, like the rest of us, want political leaders who come across as decent human beings, neighborly types with an aura of grace and likability. If the Republican Party can offer candidates who have those qualities, they might be surprised by the support they could receive for the position that massive immigration, whether illegal or legal, undermines the American dream for all of us.

http://www.cis.org/kammer/martinez

Michael Gerson's referenced column:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02835.html

From the Center for Immigration Studies

The Republicans will cave on this just like they are beginning to cave on Healthcare.



This is the typical back door method to silence dissent. Once again, both parties hush the damning consequences of erasing the borders and reporting half truths.

Karl Rove was on Rush's show a couple of years ago with this same argument. It didn't fly then...and it doesn't fly now.

The below post is one of my old post... posted possibly to HE but nothing has changed...no need to change the post:

Anyone remember the Democrat, David Schippers, former Chief Investigative Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee? This Democrat went against his party and public opinion to build a powerful case against Clinton. What you will find in his book, SELL OUT, is that both Republicans and Democrats are rotten to the core.

Remember when the Clintons and Gore strong armed the INS into hurrying the processing of Mexicans coming across the border? These quickly “processedâ€

The Democratic party was the party that represented the people of this country, but they sold us out. If anyone has any doubts about that fact can look at all the legislation the Democrats have been enacting and are attempting to enact that supports illegals over Americans of ALL etnicities. Watch C-Span, go to Senate.org, look at the issues and see how the Democrats are voting against the American people.

The Republicans as a party have turned a page when they were the majority they were bit arrognant and made mistakes but their mistakes are like a walk in the park compared to what we have now. And most Republicans realize the mistakes their party has made and have had to re-think some things. I give them credit for this review.

The Democrats on the other had have become bold, anti-american and think THEY are too big to fail. They have been hijacked by Fascist.

If the Democractic party is so great then why are so many people that voted them into office so poor as a result of legislation Democrats have wrote and enacted against the will of the Republicans and the American people?

The Democrats don't care about the American people at all.

I vote issue not party.

PS
Demograhically their are still more non-hispanic voters in this country and both parties better keep that in mind.

Demograhically their are still more non-hispanic voters in this country and both parties better keep that in mind.

Also bear in mind that a large number of illegal aliens in this country are from Europe, Asia and Eurasia. About half of the illegal aliens in this country entered legally under one of the visa programs. When their visas expired, they stayed anyway. Since the government does not manage anything (this applies to health care too), it has been oblivious to the buildup of people here illegally because of expired visas. This is also a reason that I believe we cannot really separate legal and illegal immigration issues anymore, since both impact employment of US citizens, both impact social services, and legal immigration leads to illegal aliens in too many instances due to government mismanagement.

The invasion by the ILLEGALS is not a partisan issue! The problem for at least the last 20 years is too many Elitist Politicians from both major Political Parties, have been willing to turn the United States into a welfare state to insure most of our citizens obtain Third World status by importing ILLEGALS for cheap labor to take United States Citizen’s jobs for their Political Contributors and Special Interest Groups or outsourcing United States Citizen’s jobs to Third World Countries. Too many U.S. Citizens are wrapped up into winning one for their political party and our nation's survival becomes secondary to PARTY LOYALTY!

Originally Posted by lccat

The invasion by the ILLEGALS is not a partisan issue! The problem for at least the last 20 years is too many Elitist Politicians from both major Political Parties, have been willing to turn the United States into a welfare state to insure most of our citizens obtain Third World status by importing ILLEGALS for cheap labor to take United States Citizen’s jobs for their Political Contributors and Special Interest Groups or outsourcing United States Citizen’s jobs to Third World Countries. Too many U.S. Citizens are wrapped up into winning one for their political party and our nation's survival becomes secondary to PARTY LOYALTY!

Yes indeed!

Originally Posted by lccat

The invasion by the ILLEGALS is not a partisan issue! The problem for at least the last 20 years is too many Elitist Politicians from both major Political Parties, have been willing to turn the United States into a welfare state to insure most of our citizens obtain Third World status by importing ILLEGALS for cheap labor to take United States Citizen’s jobs for their Political Contributors and Special Interest Groups or outsourcing United States Citizen’s jobs to Third World Countries. Too many U.S. Citizens are wrapped up into winning one for their political party and our nation's survival becomes secondary to PARTY LOYALTY!

You have the rare gift of commonsense.