Thread: Lamar Smith's misguided view on immigration

Lamar Smith's misguided view on immigration

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.
San Francisco Chronicle December 29, 2010 04:00 AM San Francisco Chronicle.

SAN DIEGO - Rep. Lamar Smith's pet cause is immigration enforcement. Now, as the chairman-elect of the House Judiciary Committee attempts to convince fellow Republicans to join his posse, he has also taken an interest in Latino voting patterns.

Too bad he has such a limited understanding of both.

The San Antonio congressman can't match candlepower with Republicans such as Karl Rove, Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich. They are also thinking about Latino voting, and they worry that the GOP is - through the immigration debate - alienating an otherwise conservative audience with incendiary rhetoric and bumper sticker slogans.

According to the polling firm Latino Decisions, 71 percent of the votes cast by Latinos in the midterm elections went to Democratic candidates. And with recent census data showing that Hispanics drive population growth in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Florida and other states, the Republican Party could be capsized by a demographic tidal wave.

Yet, instead of making peace, Smith is making up tall tales. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, he made the rosy claim that GOP-Hispanic relations were "very bright" in spite of warnings that "a pro-rule-of-law stand would undercut Hispanic support for Republicans."

Smith wants to reassure Republicans in Congress that they can act with impunity if they bash immigrants - of all kinds. Not simply an opponent of illegal immigration, he also supports limiting legal immigration. And he wants to change the 14th Amendment and deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

Hard-liners like Smith get tangled in contradictions. To avoid charges of being anti-foreigner, they insist they're only concerned with "illegal immigration" and have no problem with legal immigrants - whom they also want to keep out. And they brag about being "pro-rule-of-law" right up to the point where they try to change laws they don't agree with.

There is good news. Unlike demagogues such as Tom Tancredo - the former Colorado congressman who managed to enrage Cuban Americans, a loyal GOP constituency, by calling Miami a "third-world country" - Smith hasn't been foolish enough to say outright racist things. Nor does he compare illegal immigrants to insects as did Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who insists that authorities should be able to apprehend more illegal immigrants because the government can "capture illegal grasshoppers from Brazil." We heard something similar from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who said that he wants to build a concrete border fence that no one or nothing could get across, not even "a cockroach."

The problem with Smith is that he doesn't approach the immigration issue with honesty, nuance or sophistication. As when he says that the Obama administration is making it "easier for illegal immigrants to keep jobs that rightly belong to U.S. citizens and legal immigrant workers."

This sounds like something you'd hear from a Democrat pandering to union workers in a Rust Belt state. Does a supposedly pro-business Republican really need to be reminded that U.S. jobs don't "rightly belong" to anyone but rather are earned by those who are willing to do them?

Smith doesn't grasp that the immigration issue is about economics and the need to replenish the U.S. labor supply because young people are raised to think of themselves as entitled to avoid stoop labor. He thinks the whole problem can be solved by enforcement alone, even though the professionals who do that work daily - whether it's Border Patrol agents or the brass at Immigration and Customs Enforcement - disagree and insist that there isn't a wall high enough to deter mothers and fathers who are desperate to feed their children.

Smith is tougher on some offenders than he is on others. He sounds like Dirty Harry when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants who can't vote and don't contribute to political campaigns, but he wimps out and becomes Barney Fife when he has the chance to stiffen penalties on employers who do. The co-author of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which focused on enforcement, somehow forgot to include a new round of employer sanctions in the mix.

He didn't forget. I interviewed Smith a couple of years after the law was passed, and I asked him why he hadn't come down harder on employers. He candidly acknowledged that it would have been a tough sell to fellow Republicans.

Now Lamar Smith is on another sales trip, peddling the snake oil that Republicans can do their worst and not pay a price with Latino voters.

Buyer beware. Tidal wave approaching.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z19X9lhGvS

They sure seemed worried about something!

WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT "LATINO" VOTERS

Some of them hate the illegals ,
The illegals don't vote (or shouldn't)
The illegal panderers will vote dem no matter what

So why on earth should the repubs suck up to Latinos? Shouldn't they be
advancing policy for all Americans?

I think most of America is FED UP with this ethnic latino pandering

As usual Navarette tries to push the "we need immigrants" gunk and dismisses the rule of law. According to him, anyone who wants to enforce our laws is a racist and tries to push the idea that it's an economic advantage to keep them here as he ignores the costs and devastation to this country by the illegality of this issue. If our politicians keep insisting on pandering to the illegal alien, open border Latino crowd, they will lose the huge voting block of other Americans, and you'll see the emerging of a third party who will eventually give the boot to both Democrats and Republicans.

No Republican who cares about country and citizensr gives a damn what the open borders lobby thinks. So if they want to depict Latino Voters as people who don't care about our country or citizens, that's their right, and if Latino Voters choose to vote with the open borders lobby that has so far done nothing except destroy the US economy, then that's up to them as well. This is a free country where legal voters can either vote to protect our citizens or vote to destroy them. But when Latino Voters choose the latter, then that is surely noted by non-Latino Voters.

By the way, who exactly are "Latino Voters" anyway? I think we have a right to know who exactly wants to destroy our country with overpopulation, more people and jobs, and poverty caused by illegal immigration.

Somehow Latino, got mixed in with illegal alien(parasitic trespasser)

They turned it in to a racial slant, right off the back

They have no clue it is not about race. It is about Americans, vs. the world.

Rep. Lamar Smith's pet cause is immigration enforcement. Now, as the chairman-elect of the House Judiciary Committee attempts to convince fellow Republicans to join his posse, he has also taken an interest in Latino voting patterns.

Too bad he has such a limited understanding of both.

The San Antonio congressman can't match candlepower with Republicans such as Karl Rove, Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich. They are also thinking about Latino voting, and they worry that the GOP is - through the immigration debate - alienating an otherwise conservative audience with incendiary rhetoric and bumper sticker slogans.

According to the polling firm Latino Decisions, 71 percent of the votes cast by Latinos in the midterm elections went to Democratic candidates. And with recent census data showing that Hispanics drive population growth in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Florida and other states, the Republican Party could be capsized by a demographic tidal wave.

It sounds like Navarrette is using this "Latino voting pattern" as Blackmail or Bribery.

Votes are earned and it's illegal to buy and sell them.
But illegal is nothing new to the Pro side of illegal Immigration.

when i saw the navarrette name. i knew it had to be something against america, the enforcement of laws, or the congress people who oppose amnesty.

Ruben is one nasty piece of reconquista work

He is an apologist for the illegals , you have to be careful though , He has a knack for making the casual reader agree with his position

Most of us know him and are not fooled by his tripe, But a lot of people are

He is the Joseph Goebbels of reconquista propaganda writers

Originally Posted by Justthefacts

Ruben is one nasty piece of reconquista work

Here we have his East Coast counterpart: Albor Ruiz

Quote: "WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT "LATINO" VOTERS"

No one but the politicians running for office that mistakenly think it will secure their vote.

Soon, it is not going to matter whether you are a republican or democrat, as to having a choice as to who you are going to vote for to stop the rape of this country. If you are a direct recipient of losing your job to an illegal alien, you or your loved one or friends are a victim of identify theft by an illegal, a drunk illegal wrecking your car or worse yet killing someone you care about, waiting in the ER with a real emergency, garbage neighborhoods, putting up with routine rudeness in a WalMart by illegals, crowding, shoving, blocking aisles.....the list goes on.

I would bet that all the posters on Alipac are not republicans. They are just simply Americans who want their country restored to some form of civility, fairness and want to coexist with people who love it as much as they do. They do not want their already existing laws compromised....they want them obeyed, and most feel they should not have to march in the streets to have that happen. I will not sell them short......anyone who is a victim of this criminal lawlessness that is being tolerated by this adminstration is going to vote for people who will get it under control....once and for all Fence sitters, sympathizers and pacifists on this issue will not be elected....and that includes RINOS.