GOP Draws Line on Immigration

ARIZONA REPUBLIC

By Daniel González and Bob Ortega

August 22, 2012

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/08/22/20120822gop-draws-line-immigration.html

Republican leaders have endorsed an immigration-platform plank for next week's GOP convention that supports Arizona-style laws aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.

The move likely will appeal to conservatives but could alienate Hispanics at a time when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is trying to woo Latino voters.

The immigration plank, which says "state efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked," was modified late Tuesday to reflect a tougher tone at the urging of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, according to the Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper that covers Capitol Hill.

Kobach helped write Arizona's immigration-enforcement law known as Senate Bill 1070 and is a national proponent of laws aimed at driving illegal immigrants out of the country through a strategy called attrition through enforcement. That strategy involves making illegal immigrants' lives in this country as difficult as possible.

The tougher language had been in the GOP's 2008 platform but was not in this year's draft until the party's platform committee restored it Tuesday, according to media reports. The platform will be submitted for approval at the Republican National Convention, which gets under way in Tampa on Monday.

The plank also demands that the U.S. Department of Justice withdraw lawsuits against immigration laws in Arizona and other states. The lawsuits have contended the laws are unconstitutional on the grounds that immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government, not states.

At Kobach's urging, the GOP's immigration plank also instructs the federal government to withhold funding to universities that allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition and "sanctuary cities" that refuse to enforce immigration laws, according to the Hill. In 2006, Arizona voters approved a ballot initiative requiring students who cannot prove their legal status to pay out-of-state tuition at public universities.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June effectively upheld a key portion of SB 1070 that requires local police to check the papers of a person who is stopped, detained or arrested if they suspect the person is in the country illegally. The court threw out three other provisions of the law. Civil-rights advocacy groups are again seeking an injunction against the so-called "show me your papers" provision.

"This (the platform plank) shows that Republicans stand with the state of Arizona and stand with Governor (Jan) Brewer on SB 1070," said Matthew Benson, a spokesman for the GOP governor.

Benson said, however, that the plank also calls for a temporary-worker program that would allow more workers from other countries to enter legally rather than illegally to meet the demand for labor in the U.S., he said.

"That is something that the governor has spoken about before," Benson said. "There needs to be some way to provide a labor source in those industries that are reliant (on immigrant labor), including agriculture in southern Arizona, so they have the manpower that they need to do the job so that it's regulated and well-supervised."

State Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said he is pleased the Republican Party is taking the defense of Arizona and other states that have implemented similar immigration laws to the national level.

The GOP platform committee voted to adopt the immigration plank on the same day Romney's campaign told the Hill that its goal is to receive 38 percent of the Latino vote. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Telemundo poll has President Barack Obama leading Romney among Latinos, 63 percent to 28 percent.

Some analysts say the GOP's official position on immigration could make it more difficult for Romney to attract Latino voters.

During primary races, Romney said he supported laws that encourage illegal immigrants to "self-deport." He also praised an Arizona law that requires all employers to use E-Verify, a federal Internet database for checking the employment eligibility of all new workers, as a model for the nation.

Since becoming the presumptive nominee, Romney has taken a softer tone on illegal immigration.

"He pushed himself to the right during the primaries," said Louis DeSipio, a political-science professor at the University of California-Irvine. "It would have been easier for him to moderate his position if the party hadn't adopted a strident position in its platform."

DeSipio said that even if Romney doesn't adopt the same tough tone, immigration advocates will remind Latino voters of the GOP's platform.

"It's really hard to get people to vote for you when you are telling their loved ones they should get out," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, an immigration-advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

He said the Republicans' platform on immigration shows that the hard-line enforcement wing now dominates the party. In the past, the GOP's pro-reform wing supported comprehensive immigration legislation that combined immigration enforcement and border security with a legalization program for the more than approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said the plank signals the GOP is endorsing SB 1070 despite the Supreme Court's tossing out much of the law.

"They've doubled down on it," said Grijalva, who vehemently opposed SB 1070. "They're taking the risk of saying the Latino community and Latino voters in this country are irrelevant."

John J. Pitney Jr., a political-science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, said voters typically don't pay close attention to party platforms. He said the economy, not immigration, is the top issue this year.

Still, immigration could make a difference in certain key states, including Colorado, Nevada, Florida and possibly Arizona, if the race tightens here.

"If the race tightens, anything that moves it a point or two could be important," Pitney said. "If it's important in key states, then it's an important issue."

Kavanagh does not think the GOP platform will hurt Romney. "I think a lot of the voters who object to illegal-immigration enforcement wouldn't be voting for Republicans in the first place," he said.

Also, Latino immigrants who came to the U.S. legally probably resent illegal immigrants because they disproportionately take their jobs, he said.

Scottsdale resident DeeDee Garcia Blase, founder of the Republican Latino group Somos Republicans, said many Latino Republicans are turned off by the anti-immigrant stance of many Republicans in Arizona and elsewhere.

Garcia Blase, an Air Force veteran, said she was drawn to the party because she supports a strong national defense. But a year ago, she left the party and became an independent after 20 years because she "couldn't stomach" laws like SB 1070.

"Obviously, more and more Hispanics are jumping ship," she said.