Republicans must change on immigration, Navarrette
Republicans must change on immigration
By Ruben Navarrette
2:00 a.m. February 8, 2009
There has been a misunderstanding. According to the chatter, many Republicans seem to think they lost the Hispanic vote because their party took a stand against illegal immigration.
That's pretty much what radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said during a recent interview with fellow talker Sean Hannity. I like listening to Limbaugh, but what gibberish. That theory makes the GOP sound almost noble, as if it's paying a price for its convictions. Yet it is Republican lawmakers who tend to weaken employer sanctions – perhaps the most effective immigration enforcement measure in existence.
It also has a ring of resignation, suggesting that the only way for the GOP to make nice with America's largest minority is to reverse itself and embrace an open border. Wrong again. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, most Latinos support reasonable enforcement measures and don't begrudge the United States the right to protect its borders.
Worse, the theory implies that if the GOP could relive the last several years, it wouldn't do anything differently.
I hope that's not true. They say elephants never forget, but is it too much to ask for them to learn a lesson once in a while? Otherwise, with the country on the march to being one-fourth Hispanic in 30 years, Republicans may become extinct.
Let me be clear. The reason for the Hispanic exodus from the GOP is not because Republicans took a stand against illegal immigration. It's the way they did it – or at least many of them did it. As always, the devil was in the details.
Since the election, I've heard from hundreds of Hispanics who are still steamed at the GOP. That is no surprise. Time heals wounds, but this is recent history. (Ask the Mexicans about the Spanish. My people have been known to hold a grudge for 500 years.) Hispanics tell me they're angry that the immigration debate became so nasty, that employers escaped most of the criticism, that the tone went from anti-illegal immigrant to anti-Hispanic, that Latino culture and bilingualism were attacked, and that some Americans made the same argument that was made in previous decades against the Germans, Chinese, Irish, Italians and Jews – namely, that the real concern was about America admitting an inferior grade of immigrant.
Hispanics also resent the racism, the reluctance of many Americans to empathize with immigrants as similar to their ancestors, the assumption that anyone who looks Hispanic must have only recently arrived in this country, and the fact that opportunistic politicians proposed half-baked solutions for closing the border and getting rid of illegal immigrants.
Just look at Republicans in Congress who have put their weight behind efforts to declare English the national language, deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and empower local police to enforce federal immigration law. All of these things are opposed by most Latinos.
Where the GOP went wrong was in letting the loudest and shrillest voices carry the party banner – and to what end? To scare up a few votes from skittish Americans convinced that taco trucks cruising neighborhoods or the option to “press 2 for Spanishâ€
