President Obama has played Hispanics again. If, as now expected, Obama enacts an executive order granting amnesty to several million immigrants after the 2016 election will Hispanics dutifully troop to the voting booth and again deliver the White House to a Democrat? Or, can Republicans take advantage of the growing Latino outrage over Obama’s many broken promises?
The Hispanic community should talk to Republicans, and the GOP should raise the tent flaps. The GOP needs Hispanic voters; Democrats take them for granted. Republicans, controlling the House and perhaps soon the Senate, have the ability to move the needle on changing our immigration laws; Democrats, when they controlled the House and held a super-majority in the Senate, couldn’t be bothered.
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Because of last summer’s tidal wave of unaccompanied minors crossing the Rio Grande, the pendulum has recently swung towards GOP-held positions. Whereas six months ago a majority of Americans ranked granting legal status to undocumented persons their top priority, now their top concern is border security.
Republicans in Congress could generate much needed goodwill (and mute Obama’s tiresome blame game) by creating legislation that begins to untangle our immigration hairball. For both the GOP and Hispanics, there is much to be gained from a cease-fire of hostilities.
Recent events have suggested that Hispanics could move in this direction. Yesterday, members of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) were expected to rally outside Sen. Michael Bennet’s office “to express the anger and disappointment in the President’s decisions and the role of Senate Democrats in asking Obama to delay executive action for political reasons.” An organizer for that group told Fox News a few days ago, “Our coalition is outraged by President Obama's continued lies and betrayal of the hard working, contributing immigrants who are the fabric of this country. He has dragged us along for far too long with his false hopes and false promises.”
Some Hispanic organizations are threatening to sit out the midterm elections. Though an unpopular amnesty move by Obama could overwhelm the loss of Latino votes in some toss-up states, the races in Georgia, Louisiana and North Carolina could well hinge on Hispanic votes. The contests in those states are tight; in each, Hispanics account for a growing share of the voter population.
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In Georgia, for instance, where Republican David Perdue is shown by Real Clear Politics to be up by about three points over Democrat Michele Nunn, Hispanics account for about 3 percent of eligible voters – enough to make the difference. Only about half of that group has signed up to vote; anger over the amnesty delay makes a registration surge less likely.
Ditto in North Carolina, where incumbent Kay Hagan is trailing Republican Thom Tillis by less than one percent. Hispanics likely make up about 2 percent of the voter population in the state; their presence could be decisive.
Carmen Velasquez, founder of Alivio Medical center in Chicago and an outspoken advocate for immigration reform, recently wrote in Politico magazine, “But maybe Latinos in places like Colorado, Florida, Arkansas and North Carolina — states with closely contested Senate or governor’s races — should sit this election out. Maybe only by paying a price at the polls will Democrats finally stop throwing us under the bus.”
How can Republicans capitalize on Hispanic disenchantment? They have an opening, both with the Latino community, and with all Americans, who now say they trust the GOP more than Democrats to manage our immigration policy. First, they need to get their heads around the immutable demographics of Latino influence. Hispanics are the fastest-growing voter block in the U.S. Though the turnout rate for the group (48 percent) lagged that of blacks (67 percent) and whites (64 percent), Hispanic voters were determinate in several pivotal states. They are not going away.
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Next, it is important not to write off the Hispanic voter, especially since the fastest-growing part of the population is young people. While the number of eligible Latino voters increased 19 percent between 2008 and 2012, the number between the ages of 18 and 22 jumped 43 percent. Only 37 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 turned out to vote in the last election, suggesting a low level of political commitment. Young people are typically flexible and not so committed politically. They can be wooed, and the numbers can change. (After all, George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004 – compared to 27 percent by Romney in 2012.)
The GOP needs to convey to young Hispanics that their hopes and dreams will be best satisfied by a government that celebrates and paves the way for individual achievement, by fostering excellent education, ensuring personal security and reducing the regulatory barriers to opportunity – in other words, the bedrock of the Republican platform.
The GOP needs, more importantly, to convince the country they can be a force for good. Right-wing hostility to immigrants is overblown by a partial media. Pew Research reports, based on a survey taken early this year, that 76 percent of all Americans think people here illegally “should be eligible for citizenship if they meet certain requirements”; two-thirds of Republicans agree with that statement and even 59 percent of Tea Partiers.
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Very few Americans (17 percent) believe that a national effort to deport all undocumented residents makes sense; even among Tea Partiers, that’s a minority view (31 percent). The GOP is not greatly out of step with the rest of the country.
Meanwhile, Hispanics are not alone in their distaste of President Obama’s stutter-step on immigration. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll puts approval of Obama’s immigration policy at a new low of 31 percent, while 59 percent disapprove. That’s a far cry from Obama’s first term in office, when he vowed to reform the system and 48 percent of the country thought he was doing the right thing. Every time legislation seemed imminent, his ratings rose again.
Americans understand that we need to change our immigration system; they differ on how to do so. But, surely most think that hosting 11 million people who have no legal status makes no sense. Surely most agree that we should not discourage highly talented and trained people who go to our best universities from staying in the country. And, just as surely, most think that our border should be secure. These principles are an excellent starting point for the GOP; surely they can find a way forward.
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