CBS News
By Rebecca Kaplan
July 10, 2015
Donald Trump has pulled off an amazing feat.
During
a summer that has had no shortage of news events, from major Supreme
Court decisions to the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, he has
managed to stay in the
limelight -- and keep the issue of immigration in the headlines --
after his recent comments calling Mexican immigrants criminals and
rapists. He has also gotten nearly every other Republican in the 2016
GOP race to talk about his candidacy, rather than their
own.
Trump
shows little sign of letting up -- he's headed to Arizona this weekend
to give a speech alongside Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is
notorious for his own
hard-line views on illegal immigration. And he's boasted about bringing
renewed attention to the issue.
"You
wouldn't be hearing about the word immigration if it weren't for Donald
Trump," he said in an interview with NBC News this week. "I brought the
whole subject up!"
Still, conservative insiders say he's unlikely to move the needle on the GOP's internal divide over immigration.
"Will
there be long term impact for the Republican Party? I don't think so,
mostly because our nominee's not going to be Donald Trump," Republican
strategist John Feehery
told CBS News. He said it reminded him of the attention that some of
the long-shot 2012 presidential candidates like former congresswoman
Michele Bachmann and businessman Herman Cain received last election
cycle.
If
anything, Trump serves as a reminder that the Republican Party is as
divided on immigration as they were at the end of the 2012 election,
after GOP nominee Mitt Romney's
dismal showing among Latinos. That election prompted the Republican
National Committee (RNC) to decide that 2013 was the year to champion
comprehensive immigration reform. Unfortunately for the RNC, many
Republican members of the House of Representatives and
the constituents they represented were not ready to swap increased
border security spending for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in
the U.S. illegally. Consequently, a bipartisan Senate bill came to a
long, tortuous end in the House.
RNC
chairman Reince Priebus reportedly called Trump to tell him to soften
the rhetoric Wednesday, but there's a risk in pushing him too far,
former GOP congressman Tom
Davis told CBS News.
"I
think he strikes a chord with a lot of voters - probably not a majority
but a significant piece of the electorate voicing some of their
concerns," Davis said. Plus,
he added, if the RNC angers Trump too much, he has enough money to run
as an independent - and "most every vote" he gets will take away from
the Republican candidate.
As
the New York Times notes, Trump has plenty of supporters among
conservative radio hosts and the people who tune into their shows every
day.
"I
have an incredible amount of admiration and respect for just this
aspect of what Trump has done," Rush Limbaugh said on his show this
week.
Lynn
Tramonte, the deputy director at America's Voice, a Latino advocacy
group, said Trump has merely clarified the chasm between Republicans and
Democrats on the issue
of immigration.
"He's
exposed the fact that there's a faction of the Republican Party that
believes this is true, that Mexicans come here to commit crimes," she
told CBS News. "Its not
a new phenomenon."
While
Trump's remarks have shone a spotlight on the GOP's rift over
immigration, they have also created some tension for Hillary Clinton,
the Democratic frontrunner.
Clinton's
first response to Trump -- the one that helps her politically -- was to
say Republicans are on a "spectrum of hostility" on the subject of
immigration. She reiterated
her support for comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway
to citizenship, a position that is shared by many Latino voters.
But
after a woman was shot and killed at a San Francisco pier by an
unauthorized immigrant who had been deported five times, Trump used the
incident to bolster his remarks
about sealing off the southern border. That forced Clinton to address
her previous support for "sanctuary cities" like San Francisco, where
city personnel are not allowed to help the federal government with
immigration-related law enforcement.
Clinton
told CNN this week that the city of San Francisco "made a mistake" by
not deporting Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, the man charged with the
murder.
"He
ends back up in our country, and I think the city made a mistake. The
city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government
strongly felt should be
deported. So I have absolutely no support for a city that ignores the
strong evidence that should be acted on," Clinton said.
In
a 2007 debate, Clinton defended sanctuary cities by arguing that it was
easier for local law enforcement to protect people if immigrants didn't
fear sharing information
because it might lead to their being deported.
Republican
candidates Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson have all
come out against sanctuary cities. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry weighed
in on the issue
Thursday evening, saying the federal government should cut off certain
funds to states that refuse to shut down sanctuary cities.
Ultimately, Trump's comments have simply forced many of the candidates to reiterate their stances on immigration reform.
Texas
Sen. Ted Cruz had to engage in a lengthy back-and-forth with host Chuck
Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press" over the weekend, where Todd repeatedly
tried to nail him
down on what he would do about the more than 11 million immigrants
living illegally in the U.S. "I think we should secure the border and
then have a conversation at that point," Cruz ultimately said, after
many iterations of the question.
He also said, "I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration."
Former
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said he disagreed with Trump's comments
but that the businessman "points to a very important thing, which is we
have a serious problem
of illegal immigration in this country that is undermining American
workers." Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey
Graham delved into what requirements they would put in place for giving
undocumented immigrants legal status and citizenship,
respectively.
Feehery
said the Trump situation has been "pretty good" for someone like Jeb
Bush who has pledged he would hold true to his less popular views during
the primary election
to win the general election. But he also warned that there's a danger
in "overdoing on condemning Trump."
"He
needs to do that, but he also needs to be able to find common ground
with some of the folks Trump is appealing to," Feehery said. Though
those voters probably won't
pick Bush in a primary election, he'll need their votes if he becomes
the GOP nominee.
Other
GOP candidates have almost nothing to gain from Trump's proclamations
about immigration. The politicians who are polling so poorly that they
may not make it onto
the debate stages suffer when someone else so thoroughly hogs the
limelight.
"Right
now he's sucking all the oxygen out of the race," Davis said. Feehery
said the climate is "bad for other candidates who are trying to get some
notoriety. If you're
like a Rick Perry or even a Ted Cruz you're kind of lost in the glare
of Donald Trump and that's probably not a place where they want to be."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment