New York Daily News (Opinion by Albor Ruiz): Mitt Romney, the current frontrunner in the GOP presidential race, could become the first Hispanic president of the U.S.
Surprised? Don't be. By now most people know it: Romney is the son of a Mexican father who crossed the border to the north when he was five -- no mention of papers here -- fleeing violence in his native country, as so many immigrants have done over the years.
Yet, he promises to have no mercy for immigrants if elected president of the U.S.
Trying to garner the support of conservative Republicans who don't trust his flip-flopping ways, Romney -- whose father and grandfather were born in the Mormon colonies in Mexico and crossed the border back to the U.S. when the Mexican Revolution erupted -- has gone out of his way to take every extreme anti-immigration position.
If elected, Romney has said, he will deport undocumented immigrants, build a border fence and add hundreds of new guards. You know, all those Mexicans crossing the border -- like his grandfather and father -- are taking jobs from real Americans -- and Mexican Mitt (check @mexicanmitt in Twitter: "Corporations are peoples, my amigos!") will not allow it.
Tough-guy Romney would also cut federal funds to "sanctuary" cities, make English the official language and veto the DREAM Act, although as someone point out, his old man could have been a "poster child" for such law.
After all, the DREAM Act would benefit immigrant children brought to the U.S. through no fault of their own. These youth, like his dad George Romney, came here with their parents in search of a safer and more prosperous life. Mexican Mitt, though, would deport them.
But there is more. In his most recent genuflection to the nativist segment of the Republican party -- and there have been many -- the perfectly coiffed candidate welcomed with great fanfare the endorsement of no less an enemy of immigrants than Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. This is the man who was the leading architect of the "papers, please" anti-immigration laws in Alabama and Arizona.
"With his campaign trumpeting Kris Kobach's endorsement, Mitt Romney's descent into the dark clutches of radical nativism is complete," said Frank Sharry, America's Voice executive director.
"Romney's embrace of this endorsement is nothing less than disgusting and will not be forgotten by those who have felt the consequences of the Kobach approach to immigration first-hand," he said.
No, it will not. As Sharry points out, in Kobach's America, "kids who want to serve in the military and attend college are criminals, states should have the right to nullify federal immigration enforcement priorities, and undocumented immigrants who are hardworking and well-established, who take care of our kids, our elders, our food and our houses, are a plague to be banished."
Yet, Romney's Mexican father became governor of Michigan and even tried -- unsuccessfully -- to become the Republican nominee for the presidency. Many questions were raised at the time about his eligibility: Was he or wasn't he a "natural-born citizen?"
The younger Romney, tough as he is on illegal immigration, seems to be perfectly okay with his Mexican dad's trajectory.
Something is certain: Come November, if Romney becomes the GOP choice to oppose President Obama, Latino voters will have no mercy for him at the polls. Unfortunately, without 40% of those votes Mexican Mitt has as much chance of becoming president as hell has of freezing over.
No "El Presidente Mitt" anytime soon...
Surprised? Don't be. By now most people know it: Romney is the son of a Mexican father who crossed the border to the north when he was five -- no mention of papers here -- fleeing violence in his native country, as so many immigrants have done over the years.
Yet, he promises to have no mercy for immigrants if elected president of the U.S.
Trying to garner the support of conservative Republicans who don't trust his flip-flopping ways, Romney -- whose father and grandfather were born in the Mormon colonies in Mexico and crossed the border back to the U.S. when the Mexican Revolution erupted -- has gone out of his way to take every extreme anti-immigration position.
If elected, Romney has said, he will deport undocumented immigrants, build a border fence and add hundreds of new guards. You know, all those Mexicans crossing the border -- like his grandfather and father -- are taking jobs from real Americans -- and Mexican Mitt (check @mexicanmitt in Twitter: "Corporations are peoples, my amigos!") will not allow it.
Tough-guy Romney would also cut federal funds to "sanctuary" cities, make English the official language and veto the DREAM Act, although as someone point out, his old man could have been a "poster child" for such law.
After all, the DREAM Act would benefit immigrant children brought to the U.S. through no fault of their own. These youth, like his dad George Romney, came here with their parents in search of a safer and more prosperous life. Mexican Mitt, though, would deport them.
But there is more. In his most recent genuflection to the nativist segment of the Republican party -- and there have been many -- the perfectly coiffed candidate welcomed with great fanfare the endorsement of no less an enemy of immigrants than Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. This is the man who was the leading architect of the "papers, please" anti-immigration laws in Alabama and Arizona.
"With his campaign trumpeting Kris Kobach's endorsement, Mitt Romney's descent into the dark clutches of radical nativism is complete," said Frank Sharry, America's Voice executive director.
"Romney's embrace of this endorsement is nothing less than disgusting and will not be forgotten by those who have felt the consequences of the Kobach approach to immigration first-hand," he said.
No, it will not. As Sharry points out, in Kobach's America, "kids who want to serve in the military and attend college are criminals, states should have the right to nullify federal immigration enforcement priorities, and undocumented immigrants who are hardworking and well-established, who take care of our kids, our elders, our food and our houses, are a plague to be banished."
Yet, Romney's Mexican father became governor of Michigan and even tried -- unsuccessfully -- to become the Republican nominee for the presidency. Many questions were raised at the time about his eligibility: Was he or wasn't he a "natural-born citizen?"
The younger Romney, tough as he is on illegal immigration, seems to be perfectly okay with his Mexican dad's trajectory.
Something is certain: Come November, if Romney becomes the GOP choice to oppose President Obama, Latino voters will have no mercy for him at the polls. Unfortunately, without 40% of those votes Mexican Mitt has as much chance of becoming president as hell has of freezing over.
No "El Presidente Mitt" anytime soon...
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