NCLR (Blog)
By Janet Murguia
August 22, 2015
It
has been a dreadful week on the issue of immigration. On Monday, Donald
Trump released his long-awaited immigration “plan” which put his
bigotry and hateful rhetoric
into policy. His agenda of mass deportation, a massive wall, and the
end of birthright citizenship hits many of the hallmarks of bad
policy-making: completely impractical, prohibitively expensive, widely
unpopular, doomed to fail, and deeply inconsistent with
our values as a nation.
Yet
once again—with a few exceptions, like Marco Rubio—the other Republican
presidential candidates rushed to embrace Trump’s latest salvo: the
proposed evisceration of
the 14th amendment. Even Jeb Bush, who does not support ending
birthright citizenship, echoed Trump’s use of the heinous and despicable
term, “anchor babies.” Calling millions of U.S. citizens a term
universally viewed as offensive by the Latino community
does not bode well for Republican electoral prospects.
And
the most disturbing incident of the week was the horrific beating of a
Latino homeless man in Boston, who was innocently sleeping near a train
station. The two brothers
charged in the crime told police that their attack was motivated by
their agreement with Donald Trump that “illegals have to go.”
Much
of the responsibility for this attack lies at the feet of not only
Trump, but of a Republican Party whose leadership has so far refused to
publicly and unequivocally
denounce Trump and his extreme rhetoric. Words have consequences, and
hateful words lead to hateful actions. No one—especially not two
intoxicated bullies—can tell a person’s immigration status by looking at
them. This senseless attack was predicated on how
this person looked. In other words, a summer of disparagement and
demonization has put a target squarely on the backs of all 55 million
Hispanics in this country.
When
the election rolls around next November, there is no question in my
mind that we will look back at this week as a turning point in the
election. It will be known
as the week when Trump’s dominance of both the campaign and the
direction of the Republican Party on the immigration issue turned a dark
and dangerous turn. It will be remembered as the week that Republicans
not only started to lose the Latino vote, but also
the election.
Republicans
can only turn this around if the Party finds both its courage and its
voice to say “enough is enough” to the demagoguery and bigotry of Trump
and his ilk,
and to the unconscionable demonization of an entire community that has
now put millions of people in harm’s way. If not, Trump will succeed in
getting his massive wall. It won’t be a wall between the U.S. and
Mexico, but a permanent wall between the Republican
Party and Latino voters.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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