Of course the Pro-ILLEGAL author refers to ILLEGALS as immigrants! One of the author's points were that Bush and McCain bent over backwards and forwards and still did not receive 50% of the hispanic vote even though he said that they have the same principles as most conservatives.

Again, why do some Hispanics who are United States Citizens desire to partner themselves with criminal ILLEGALS? I would think any U.S. Citizens would want to distance themselves from the ILLEGALS! Could it be just the so called "Hispanics Leadership (?)" fabricating a play for power and of course money always the money, maybe evenhigh 6 figure salaries! Do all United States Citizens of any other heritage want to protect ILLEGALS from their heritage who are in the United States as ILLEGALS? The answer is NO except for only the individuals that would benefit financially from the ILLEGALS or receive Political Power. The Hispanic leadership (?) claims that the vast majority of U.S. Citizens of Hispanic Heritage do support the criminal ILLEGALS as strongly as the Hispanics leadership (?)!
I would suggest that the self appointed leadership of any Heritage Group main concern is to receive monetary gains and be able to furnish votes for their Elitist Politicians in return for power.

King: Immigration stance poses big risk for GOP
By BILL KING
Updated 08:48 p.m., Wednesday, September 7, 2011
OpinionComments (7) 0

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I have a friend who is a very successful banker at one of the large national banks. We have never discussed what he makes, but I am sure it is well into six figures. As one might expect from a successful banker, he is a rather conservative fellow.

He and I were recently discussing politics. He told me that he had voted a straight Republican ticket his entire life, but that he would never again vote for any Republican. I asked why and he said, "They have insulted my family and disrespected my father."

You see, my friend's father came to the United States illegally from Mexico in the 1950s specifically so that his children would have the chance at the life my friend is living today. His father eventually became a citizen as a result of President Reagan's immigration reform in 1984. Reagan was a hero to his family for championing their cause. Now Republicans are calling his father a criminal.

I do not know what Republican strategist came up with the idea of making immigration a wedge issue, but one almost has to wonder if it was not a Democratic saboteur. Take the fastest growing demographic group in the country, and one that is inclined to agree with your party on a wide variety of cultural issues in particular, and then do everything you can to alienate them. Brilliant.

This is one political calculus that the George W. Bush and Karl Rove team had right. While governor, Bush reached out to Latinos and liberally appointed them to a wide variety of commissions and benches. As president, he pushed hard for comprehensive immigration reform. As a result, he consistently won about 40 percent to 45 percent of the Latino vote, seriously cutting into what had been considered part of the Democratic base.

But after months of anti-immigrant vitriol in the 2008 Republican primaries, John McCain's share of the Latino vote dropped to the low 30s, notwithstanding his relatively moderate stance on immigration. Considering President Obama's margin of victory in 2008, it can hardly be argued that the issue was a deciding factor in the election. But looking forward to 2012, and even more so in 2016, a growing Latino population (and its growing voting participation) could easily be a deciding factor, especially in the swing states of Florida, Colorado and New Mexico.

Political parties attempting to tap into anti-immigrant fervor is nothing new. Throughout our country's history, various political parties have tried to exploit the anxiety that normally accompanies large waves of immigration. Parties like the American Party (1850s), the Immigration Restriction League (1890s) and my person favorite, the aptly named, Know Nothing Party (1850s) are a few of those. Chances are you have never heard of any of these, which, of course, speaks volumes on the long-term viability of such a strategy.

Almost all of the Republican strategists and elected officials with whom I visit understand that, regardless of their view on the policy issues, the immigration issue is an unfolding political disaster for their party. Increasingly, Republican activists are attempting to take back the issue by promoting reasonable immigration reform and toning down the anti-Latino rhetoric. For example, Harris County arch-conservative Steven Hotze cut a video advocating immigration reform and extolling the virtues of the immigrant community as part of an effort by Republican business leaders to head off the sanctuary-city bill in the Texas Legislature this year.

Behind closed doors, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have agreed on the basics of immigration reform. Improve border security. Have a guest-worker program and allow immigrants to come and go. Tamper-proof IDs. A procedure that allows immigrants who came here illegally, or were brought here illegally as children, to gain a legal status after satisfying certain conditions. There are some details to be worked out, but it is not rocket science and polls show that a large majority of Americans favor this type of moderate, common-sense approach.

But both political parties, for different reasons, have political incentives to not solve the problem. Republicans, after having let the genie out of the bottle, now are petrified of the issue in their own primaries. In the meantime, as long as there is no solution, Democrats can continue to paint Republicans as the anti-Latino party. What began as a Republican wedge issue has ironically become a wedge issue for Democrats to peel Latino voters away from the Republican Party.

This quagmire is yet another example of how our two-party, hyperpartisan system is broken. Of all of the problems we face today, and they are certainly numerous and daunting, getting our immigration system fixed is one of the easiest to address. And yet because of the bitter, toxic political milieu in which we find ourselves, our immigration policy is adrift with no land in sight.

Email King at BKing@weking.net


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