Colombian-born Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, better known simply as superstar singer Shakira, met with President Obama at the White House today and urged the President to approve comprehensive immigration reform legislation. According to Foreign Policy Magazine:
... Shakira isn't confining her advocacy to education; she also wants Obama to push
forward on immigration reform. White House officials told Shakira that they hope
to reach an agreement this year with the Republican Party to legalize undocumented
immigrants, her representative said.
A lot of politically active performers have been reluctant to embrace immigration reform because of fear of a tea partyish backlash. I'm glad Shakira is not afraid to speak her mind.
The Orange County Register has an interesting piece reporting on the dramatic decline in fortunes for the Republican Party in affluent Orange County, California. Once a solid GOP bedrock in California, a growing immigration voting population in the county has significantly helped Democrats.
The story is also interesting in that the data is supplied by the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies which, based on quotes in the story, is pushing out the data in order to send the message to Republicans that they better stop immigrants from coming to the US because they'll all eventually become Democrats and vote you out. Of course, many of the more enlightened in the GOP realize that the Latino population expansion will happen regardless and it's better to go after those voters rather than surrender their allegiance.
Add CQ Politics to the list of news organizations writing about the growing schism in the Republican Party over immigration issues. CQ was reporting from the CPAC conference in DC for the nation's political conservatives. It appears that there are really three camps in the GOP:
- a pro-immigration wing whose members worry that conservatives will remain permanently in the minority
- a "law and order" camp that claims to be pro-immigration but merely against illegal immigration
- an anti-immigrant wing that is against immigration of any sort
GOP leaders want to pretend like the last group doesn't exist and the argument is really just one between the first and the second group. But it's clear when you hear people like Tom Tancredo and his allies that a big portion of the party is in the last group.
Consider this part of the CQ Story:
Heritage Foundation fellow Robert
Rector, a proponent of tougher penalties on illegal immigration,
characterized the split as a divide between “common-sense conservatives
and open-border libertarians.”
Rector, who spoke on two
separate panels at CPAC, said amnesty and guest worker programs are
problematic because they open access to U.S. ballot boxes — and
immigrants in turn vote for so-called entitlement programs.
“There’s
nothing evil about the immigrant. They’re just acting out their natural
intent,” he said. “They’re going to vote for free stuff.”
The
antipathy toward immigrants was further apparent in comments from
ex-Rep. J.D.
Hayworth,who is running against Sen. John McCain
for Arizona’s GOP Senate nomination. Hayworth appeared at a Feb. 18
screening of “Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration,”
introducing the film and saying it proves that U.S. immigration policy
needs to change drastically.
“The problem in
Washington is that so many people — including my opponent — view this
as a political problem to be managed instead of seeing what really is
going on,” said Hayworth, who was featured in the film. “This is an
invasion that must be stopped.”
*****
Linda Chavez, the highest-ranking woman in
President Ronald Reagan’s White House and now chairwoman of the Center
for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank devoted to issues of
race and ethnicity, told Rector during an immigration panel they shared
that she respectfully disagrees with his ideas. She said she
understands such language is borne of frustration about a broken
immigration system, but she added that it needs to cease.
*****
Chavez tried to debunk what she called
myths that foster resentment toward immigrants — they don’t assimilate
and they feed on welfare and Social Security, for instance.
On a Feb. 18 panel called “The Rise of
Latino Conservatism,” Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax
Reform, said he was taken aback by assertions he has heard that Latino
immigrants are lazy and weaken Western culture. Latinos actually share
values that are staples of conservative campaigns, he added: They’re
overwhelmingly Christian, pro-business, and oppose gay marriage and
abortion rights.
“But you can’t talk to someone from
the immigrant community, threaten to deport their relative and then ask
them to vote with you because you’re pro-life,” he said. “Some
conservatives and some Republicans have used harsh and insulting
rhetoric that has chased away Hispanic voters unnecessarily.”
Now the Wall Street Journalpicks up the theme. Words are nice. But if you can't control the vitriol coming from the Tea Party wing and actually work with Dems on immigration reform, you're not going to reverse the damage.
In short, conservative Hispanics still perceive the GOP as anti-them. And PR campaigns aren't going to fix that problem. But promoting pro-immigration candidates, as some groups mentioned in the article are doing, is a hopeful sign.
My law school roommate and long time friend Henry Olsen is the vice president of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. He's written an essay for the National Review entitled "The Way of the Whigs" and it talks about the danger the GOP faces in terms of long term survival. This might seem strange given the recent polling problems the Democrats have experienced, but Henry writes that there are long term forces at work that Republicans need to heed. One is the growing Hispanic electorate which has shifted decidedly toward the Democrats over the last two election cycles. The GOP's perceived hostility to immigrants and immigration reform are the key reason and there is no way the GOP can regain a solid footing for the future as long as it is perceived as the anti-immigrant party.
A second article with a similar theme appeared in today's Washington Post:
The U.S. Hispanic population is expected to increase by nearly 200
percent by 2050, with non-Hispanic whites comprising about half the
nation's population, down from 69.4 percent in 2000. From 1988 to 2008,
the number of eligible Hispanic voters rose 21 percent -- from 16.1
million to 19.5 million.
"The numbers don't lie," said Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant. "If
Republicans don't do better among Hispanics, we're not going to be
talking about how to get Florida back in the Republican column, we're
going to be talking about how not to lose Texas.
Fewer Hispanics view the Democratic Party favorably than did a year ago, according to NBC-Wall Street Journal polls, when they had voted in record numbers for Barack Obama.
But by many measures, including candidate recruitment and vote totals,
Republicans continue to struggle. The most vexing problem is the
immigration debate, in which hard-liners and "tea party" activists have
alienated many Hispanics with their harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric.
"That's the word that got back to folks on the street: 'They don't want us,' " said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele, who is looking for ways to tamp down fiery anti-immigration language.
Ah, the magical E-Verify solution. If we just required it for everything from getting a job to applying for any kind of government benefit and now qualifying for a mortgage, all would be right with America. In the mean time, innocent Americans are still getting caught in non-confirmation hell. For example, I'm trying to help a good friend who is a fourth generation American who inexplicably has been bounced in E-Verify. She has taken multiple trips to the Social Security Administration office and spent hours on the phone over the last several weeks trying to fix this glitch and yesterday her prospective employer ran her name again only to inform her that she is still not being cleared. E-Verify defenders would like people to believe that folks like my friend don't exist or that their problems get resolved with a quick phone call.
Pro-immigration advocates can come from the conservative movement just as they can come from the liberal camp. And just as there is an internal battle on the left (labor protectionists often seize on anti-immigration positions), there is also a battle on the right between the pro-business, small government advocates and the xenophobic America first crowd who usually couch their arguments in terms of law and order (though if you dig a little, you'll find that these folks are usually against liberalizing rules to make legal immigration easier).
Right wing Talkradionews.com reports on efforts by a Latino group to attract conservative support:
American Principles Project (APP) Senior Fellow Alfonso Aguilar, the former Chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship under George W. Bush, announced a new initiative from his organization to reach for the Latino vote and promote for immigration reform.
"This initiative sets to promote conservative values and ideals among the hispanic community, but also to integrate Latinos into fuller participation in the broader conservative movement," said Aguilar Tuesday.
According to a statement released by APP, the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles dual mission is to first acquire greater Latino support for conservative causes and candidates, and to encourage the conservative movement to support polices that are welcoming of immigrants.
"The conservative movement has to open itself up to Latinos, and that means that they have to understand the values and aspirations and see that they are very similar to the values and aspirations of regular Americans," said Aguilar. "Immigration is that issue that prevents the conservative movement from gaining sizable support from the Latino community."
