Competing voices in GOP on immigrant laborers
By Susan Ferriss - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, September 7, 2007

Republican activist Tom Hudson has fighting words for farmers and others who say they can't survive without hiring foreign workers.

"If the only way you can stay in business is to break the law -- or to import Third World workers to compete with American workers -- then you shouldn't be in business," said Hudson, 40, GOP chairman of the county that claims to be California's most Republican, Placer County.

"You should," Hudson declared, "go bye-bye."

Remarks like that disgust Joanne Neft, another Placer County Republican -- who has long worked for farm businesses.

"Tom Hudson needs to put on work pants and boots, and go out and do a day's work on a farm," said Neft, 71.

Instead, Hudson, a tax attorney, will travel to the California Republican convention this weekend in Indian Wells. There, he said, expect to see a push for the state GOP to adopt a position of "no amnesty" for illegal immigrants as part of its platform.

That would be an aggressive step beyond the party's current stance favoring legal immigration. The push may fail, Hudson said, but he's convinced that hammering on illegal immigrants -- no earned legal status ever, no guest workers -- is the greatest issue the party can embrace to earn future votes.

Greater than no new taxes, said Hudson, tax counsel for the state Board of Equalization.

Some employers fed up

From GOP presidential hopefuls to state activists, many Republicans are savoring the defeat last spring of immigration overhaul legislation and continuing to wage rhetorical war on illegal immigrants.

The problem for the party is that the new attacks are being lobbed at some of the employers who have consistently been a strong base of GOP support -- and those employers are fed up with the party's toughening positions on immigration.

Hudson and others, those employers say, are exploiting xenophobia and ignorance of limitations in the visa system. They blame cries for "enforcement only" -- and no importation of "Third World workers" -- for jeopardizing their livelihood.

"I'm tired of people calling me a bad actor," said Chico industrial landscaper Cathy Gurney, another Republican. Lawmakers she once supported, Gurney said, have failed to defend small businesses like hers. She said U.S. citizens are hard to recruit, even though she pays above minimum wage, offers health insurance and follows all tax rules.

In 1994, farmers and others who employ immigrant workers fretted quietly -- if at all -- about Proposition 187, the initiative spearheaded by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson that sought to ban illegal immigrant kids from public schools. Today, they're feeling the heat more personally because this time employers are in the crosshairs.

Farmer backs AgJOBS

The debate tends to pit those who work side by side with immigrants against those who have little personal contact with foreign workers, or who view illegal immigrants solely as lawbreakers and a drain on public services.

Manuel Cunha, a Fresno-area fruit farmer, Republican and son of Portuguese immigrants, once campaigned vigorously for GOP candidates.

Now he's a fan of California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, with whom he's worked -- along with the United Farm Workers union -- to try to pass an immigration overhaul bill for agribusiness. The proposal, AgJOBS, would legalize current undocumented farm laborers who remain in the fields for three to five years. It would later admit temporary workers to fill future needs.

Cunha had choice words for activists like Hudson, calling them "so-called Republican leaders."

"I hope he enjoys bringing in food from foreign countries," Cunha said.

Hudson has a ready comeback. "It's entirely possible," he said, that losing foreign workers would decrease the size of California agribusiness. But that's OK, Hudson said, because the free market will provide.

"There are lots of businesses we don't have in California," he said. "Californians buy shoes, and I can assure you there's not a shoe factory in California."

Lawmakers frustrated

Last spring, businesses unsuccessfully lobbied Congress to pair tougher enforcement with a way for undocumented workers to earn legal status.

Some businesses also lobbied for what they see as a core reform: more immigrant work visas, which, for lower-skilled jobs, number only a few thousand a year.

Even labor unions, businesses point out, agree that illegal immigrants are filling a need.

That argument does not sway Hudson either. "Should we legalize them just because there's a demand?" he asked.

Republican legislators straddling the divide express frustration. Rep. Dan Lungren, a Gold River Republican interested in immigration overhaul, said he knows farmers need foreign workers. But most Americans, he said, want proof that the government is serious about enforcement and oppose any legal status that looks like amnesty for illegal workers.

That's why, Lungren said, he's refrained from supporting AgJOBS. He has his own bill "waiting in the wings" to admit foreigners to work on farms for 10-month stints, but it provides no path to residency.

Lungren said that at recent town hall meetings in his district, which includes some of Northern California's most conservative areas, constituents didn't seem interested in farmers' problems or labor shortages.

Instead, they quizzed him about rumors circulating on conservative Web sites of an allegedly secret plan to erode U.S. sovereignty and merge with Mexico and Canada. Talk of work permits for Mexican workers, Lungren said, is viewed by some as part of this imagined conspiracy.

In-depth discussion about immigration overhaul, he said, has become increasingly difficult in recent years. On the other hand, he said, "immigration policy by bumper sticker is awfully easy."

Which may make "no amnesty" a handy slogan at the convention -- and in upcoming races.

Illegal immigrants are so unpopular, Hudson ventured, that if the GOP were to unify around the no-amnesty cause, Republican candidates could use that issue to regain control of California's Legislature.

"Nonsense!" countered Neft.

Political analysts tend to side with Neft. Just as there are local elections to be won in Canada "by bashing Quebec," there are campaigns to be won in California by condemning illegal immigrants, said California State University, Sacramento, political scientist Ted Lascher.

But, he said, "if you want to be the majority party in a state that's fairly liberal, solidly Democratic and heavily Latino, you've got to be careful."

Latino strength grows

Half of California will be Latino by 2050, noted state GOP communications director Hector Barajas, the son of Mexican immigrants. So to succeed, he said, the GOP has to keep a lid on "demeaning language."

That's a challenge, Neft said, when conservative talk show hosts and Web site bloggers question Mexican immigrants' ability to become real Americans.

"It's like having someone call my father-in-law a four-letter word," she said.

Ron Nehring, chairman of the California Republican Party, said it isn't fair to judge the GOP's relations with immigrants based on what a few bloggers say.

But Lascher said Republicans must recognize that immigration provides a chance for Democrats to "hold the center" in California.

Neft, for example, broke away last year from Hudson's wing of the Placer County GOP and endorsed Democrat Charlie Brown, who came close to defeating Republican Rep. John Doolittle.

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