Bloomberg
By Sahil Kapur
May 8, 2015
Immigration.
Jeb
Bush and Senator Marco Rubio, two top contenders for the Republican
presidential nomination, will deliver major speeches on Saturday: Bush
at Liberty University in
Virginia and Rubio at the Republican Freedom Summit in South Carolina.
Both
are expected to make compelling cases for themselves. But don't expect
them to emphasize the issue atop the minds of the Hispanic voters who
could help elect the
country's 45th president: immigration.
“This is where I differ from everyone on the Republican side.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
One
reason: Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton put them in a box this
week by making an offer to Hispanics that Republicans cannot feasibly
match. She will expand
President Barack Obama's executive actions to include protections from
deportation for parents of undocumented young people who have been given
"deferred action."
"This
is where I differ from everyone on the Republican side," she told young
undocumented immigrants at a roundtable in Las Vegas on Cinco De Mayo.
The
two Floridians are the most pro-immigration candidates in the
Republican presidential field. Each offers a unique appeal to Latinos.
In Puerto Rico recently, Bush
hailed "the power of the immigrant experience," adding: "I live it each
and every day." The reference was to his Mexican-born wife, Columba,
and their bicultural children. Rubio too has a compelling personal story
as the son of Cuban immigrants. Both have
championed legislative reforms to help undocumented immigrants gain
legal status.
But
neither can match Clinton's offer. Bush, Rubio and just about all
Republicans have said Obama's executive actions to protect more than 4
million people from deportation
exceed his presidential powers and must be reversed. The president's
moves (which have been halted by a federal judge as a court battle plays
out) ignited the fury of conservative voters, whom no candidate for the
Republican presidential nomination can afford
to alienate.
Another
top-tier Republican contender, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, was
quick to channel the anxieties of that conservative base. "Hillary
Clinton's full embrace of
amnesty is unfair to hardworking Americans and all immigrants who
followed the law," said the prospective candidate, who is against
legalizing unauthorized immigrants.
Clinton's
proposal goes even further than the Obama administration did in
November. The White House would protect two categories of undocumented
persons from deportation:
1) the undocumented parents of children who were born in the United
States and who are, therefore, Americans and 2) young people who were
brought here illegally as children by their parents. Under Obama's
order, the parents who brought their children here
illegally could still be subject to deportation. Clinton, however,
would grant them leniency.
The
political implications of Clinton's move are obvious. Hispanics, the
country's fastest-growing demographic, provide critical votes in swing
states like Florida, Colorado,
New Mexico and Nevada. And they support Obama's executive actions by
large margins—64 percent in a Gallup survey in December; 89 percent in a
Presente poll in November—because the initiatives delivered results
where Congress has repeatedly failed to.
That
might explain why Bush and Rubio haven't said a word about the issue.
There's no easy way to discuss it without alienating either the
Republican voters they need
in the primary or the Hispanic voters they'll likely need in the
general election.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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