Thread: Some Democrats Send a More Conservative Immigration Message

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/us/po ... r=homepage

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Oct. 11 — In Washington, the Democratic leadership in Congress has maintained a united front on immigration, demanding legislation that would legalize illegal immigrants and create a guest worker program to ensure a reliable legal flow of foreign workers.

But here in Tennessee, and in at least a dozen other fiercely contested Congressional races, Democratic candidates are publicly breaking with that message.

In North Carolina, Heath Shuler, a former Washington Redskins quarterback who is running for Congress, ran a television advertisement declaring he would never “give amnesty” to illegal immigrants. In Georgia, Representative John Barrow has played up his vote to build a fence on the southwest border. In Ohio, John Cranley, the challenger to the Republican incumbent, Representative Steve Chabot, has accused Mr. Chabot of voting to legalize hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

In this state, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., the Democrat running for Senate, reminds voters repeatedly that federal agents raided his Republican opponent’s business and found four illegal immigrants working there. Mr. Ford also proudly describes his vote for the border security legislation passed by the House last year, a measure condemned as anti-immigrant by many Democrats in Congress.

“I’m the only person on this stage who has ever voted for an anti-illegal-immigration bill, matter of fact the strongest in the country,” Mr. Ford said this week in a debate with his Republican opponent, Bob Corker. The congressman emphasized that his position put him at odds with his party and with President Bush, who pushed for legislation to grant legal status to illegal immigrants.

The vast majority of Democrats in Congress support their leadership’s call for legislation that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants and toughen border security. And politicians of all stripes go against their party leaders, on occasion, to address regional concerns. But the appearance of some candidates vying to be tougher than Republicans on border security, particularly in tight races in conservative states, shows how divisive the immigration issue remains.

The tough border security message is carried mostly by Democrats in the South and the Midwest, where a surge of Hispanic immigration is transforming small towns and cities. In such communities, some candidates are deriding legalization as amnesty, proclaiming border security as their priority or criticizing Republican challengers as failing to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

This stance has fueled an outcry from immigrant advocacy groups, including the National Council of La Raza and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, which have accused some Democrats of abandoning their principles. They warn that Democrats and Republicans who demonize immigrants risk alienating Hispanic voters, who are expected to constitute a powerful bloc in coming years.

Democratic leaders have been treading carefully. This summer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee withdrew an advertisement from its Web site displaying images of people scaling a border fence along with images of Osama bin Laden and President Kim Jong Il of North Korea. Several Hispanic groups had complained that it unfairly likened immigrants to terrorists.

“There is a disconnect between what the national party sees as rational policies and what Congressman Ford and other Democrats have determined they need to do to win,” said David Lubell, the director of the Tennessee immigrant rights coalition. “These Democrats are trying to out-right the right.”

Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who supports the legalization of illegal immigrants, also lamented the emergence of the trend in his state. “It’s who can claim ‘I’m not for amnesty’ and who can say that the loudest,” Mr. Flake said.

Republican campaign officials dismiss the phenomenon as insignificant, arguing that most Democrats still remain vulnerable on immigration, particularly among conservative voters.

“Democrats may try to talk a good game,” said Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, “but most of the incumbents have voting records opposite to what they’re now trying to claim.”

Some Democrats praise the shift in tone, saying internal polling shows that the traditional message of support for legalization for illegal immigrants lacks the backing of many middle-class voters, regardless of party affiliation.

“They think that Democrats are on the side of illegal immigrants even at the expense of citizens,” said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at the Third Way, a centrist Democratic research group that has conducted polling on immigration. Mr. Kessler, who in recent months has briefed senior Democratic campaign officials and the staffs of dozens of Democratic candidates, has been advising them to take the offense on border security by charging that immigration enforcement has faltered under Republican leadership.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is leading the Democrats’ campaign to win Congress, and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, Mr. Emanuel’s Senate counterpart, publicly praised Mr. Kessler’s research this year.

All three men emphasized that they supported the legalization of illegal immigrants but said that it was important to note the Republicans’ weaknesses on enforcement.

Mr. Kessler acknowledged that his message was hard for some Democrats “to swallow.” But adopting a tougher message, he said, would make Democratic candidates less vulnerable in the November elections.

“Immigration is an incredible source of strength for Americans,” he said. “But it’s also a source of angst for Americans. I don’t think we should just shrug that off.”

The mounting Democratic ambivalence over immigration was apparent in September in the last frenetic weeks of lawmaking before the Congressional recess.

With the November elections looming, 62 House Democrats voted to support a strict border security measure championed by the Republican leadership, up from the 36 who supported tough legislation last December. In the Senate, 26 Democrats voted in favor of building 700 miles of fencing along the Mexican border, outnumbering the 17 Democrats who opposed it.

Since then, on the campaign trail, Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, who is up for re-election and often breaks with his party, has accused his Republican challenger of supporting the legalization approach favored by two Democratic senators, Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, both of Massachusetts.

“I support border security first; my opponent supports amnesty,” Mr. Nelson said in a television advertisement this month.

Tessa Hafen, who hopes to unseat Representative Jon Porter, Republican of Nevada, said this month that Mr. Porter favored Mr. Bush’s approach to immigration, “a plan Porter called amnesty.” But she acknowledged in an interview that she personally favored legalization, too, along with tougher border security.

In Tennessee, Mr. Corker and his allies in the Republican Party have been trying to raise doubts about Mr. Ford’s commitment to border security. In television advertisements, they say he voted against sending the military to the border and against hiring more border agents. They often note that he has voted with his party more than 80 percent of the time.

And in this week’s debate, Mr. Corker, who did not return a call for comment, said that the illegal immigrants found at his work site had been hired by a subcontractor.

Mr. Ford, who is known as something of an ambitious maverick in his party, countered that he had made those votes before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that he had been tough on illegal immigration since then.

“They think they can come in here and just malign me as this Democrat that is out of touch, whose views don’t comport with mainstream conservative values,” Mr. Ford said. “But we’ve been able to withstand that.”

Duplicate post. Locking this one.