Thread: Rove: Hispanics are `real Americans'

White House political strategist Karl Rove said Tuesday that the highly charged immigration debate has "clouded" the views of some Americans, leading them to dismiss the importance of immigrants and their contributions to the nation.

"Everything that this country is, everything that we have achieved, everything that we hold, everything that we promise, is because we are a nation of diversity, brought together by immigration, and sharing a common dream," Rove told members of the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights group, the National Council of La Raza.

Alluding to the deadlock over immigration reform on Capitol Hill, Rove said the debate had "clouded the views of some people in America and led them to fail to understand that Hispanics, and all immigrants, are real Americans."

"It is vital that our county not fall into this trap," he said.

Rove's appearance before La Raza comes at a time when both political parties are vigorously courting Hispanics, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population and a key voting bloc that could determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress.

President Bush has urged Republicans to broaden the party's appeal but the GOP's divisions over immigration reform threaten the effort with Hispanics. A Republican-backed House bill calls for stricter enforcement of immigration laws and various English-only policies.

In a 20-minute speech, Rove gave an energetic endorsement for Bush's plan, which calls for stricter border enforcement along with a way for those who have been in the United States for some time to become citizens.

Rove was applauded politely by most of the audience, and he ignored a smattering of anti-war protesters who were escorted from the cavernous hall.

In a statement, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Rove "is the one person most responsible for the anti-immigrant platform being adopted by congressional Republicans around the country.

"In 2002 it was African-Americans who were scapegoated with the use of the anger point code word 'quota,' and in 2004 it was gay Americans. Now, ahead of the 2006 elections, it's immigrants," Dean said.

La Raza, based in Washington, D.C., says it has 40,000 members along with a network of several hundred affiliated community groups that focus on civil rights, immigration, education, health and other issues. The left-leaning group is supportive of Bush's call for a path to citizenship for illegals who have been in the country for a number of years.

La Raza vice president Lisa Navarrete praised Rove's remarks for emphasizing the need for a comprehensive reform bill, not just border enforcement.

"You cannot pretend that 12 million people do not exist, or contemplate in any way that 12 million people will exit this country," she said, referring to the estimated number of illegals in the country.

Did he win any votes?

"We'll see, won't we," she said.

La Raza's meeting in Los Angeles took place not far from where hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and their supporters demonstrated last spring against the House GOP immigration reform bill calling for stricter enforcement.

In his speech, Rove talked about his family's Norwegian heritage, saying he kept a picture of his great-grandfather, an immigrant, on his office wall "to remind me of the promise of our great county."

Rove said that immigrants throughout the nation's history suffered a backlash of "public distortions," and he saw a parallel between the experience of other immigrant groups in decades gone by "and what we are seeing today."

"We need to remember the shared values that draw men and women to our shores, our that drew our parents or our grandparents or our great-grandparents before us," he said.

Rove ticked off enforcement elements of the president's proposal, but added, "All these measures will come to naught without a temporary worker program. ... It's not enough to say send them home."

He also warned that critics against were confusing the debate with catchwords, rather than solutions.

"Too many simplify the problem into one word, `amnesty,'" Rove said. "In an issue this vital, we cannot allow words to be misused."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... e=politics

Rowe said that words should not be misused and he should know as Kovak just announced that Rowe was source in outing Plume! See news. More to be announced in Washington Post tomorrow in Kovaks report.