Forbes (Opinion)
December 20, 2015
By Stuart Anderson
Lost
in the Republican primary back and forth over immigration is the
forgotten reason why Marco Rubio and like-minded conservatives wanted to
pass immigration reform
– to help Republicans win the White House and sustain majorities in
Congress.
Here
is what Marco Rubio said in a January 14, 2013 interview with the Wall
Street Journal: “The immigration issue is a gateway issue for Hispanics,
no doubt about it.
No matter what your stance is on a number of other issues, if people
somehow come to believe that you don’t like them or want them here, it’s
difficult to get them to listen to anything else.”
He
added: “I think it’s the rhetoric by a handful of voices in the
minority, but loud nonetheless, that have allowed the left to create an
unfair perception that conservatives
and Republicans are anti-Hispanic and anti-immigration, and we do have
to overcome that.”
After
Mitt Romney’s defeat in the presidential election, and Romney’s poor
showing among non-white voters, Marco Rubio initially received a good
airing on pushing for
immigration reform from many conservatives who understood the need to
expand the reach of the Republican Party. In a January 29, 2013
interview with Rubio, Rush Limbaugh was skeptical of the Democrats and
President Obama but he told Rubio, “What you are doing
is admirable and noteworthy.”
After
the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee (RNC) laid out in a
100-page report, and in stark terms, the problems the Republican Party
faced if it wanted
to win the White House again.
“If
Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not
want them in the United States (i.e. self-deportation), they will not
pay attention to our next
sentence,” the RNC report noted. “It does not matter what we say about
education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think we do not want them
here, they will close their ears to our policies.”
The
report explained that Mitt Romney received only 27 percent of the
Hispanic vote and 26 percent of the Asian vote, compared to George W.
Bush receiving 40 percent and
44 percent of each respectively in 2004.
“We
are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the
Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion
comprehensive immigration reform,”
report continued. “If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to
shrink to its core constituencies only. We also believe that
comprehensive immigration reform is consistent with Republican economic
policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all.”
In
short, Marco Rubio thought the same as many other Republican leaders –
if Republicans wanted to take back the White House, it needed to solve
this problem. Given his
background and position, he was in a unique position to do something
about it.
Back
in 2013, even Sen. Ted Cruz understood that Republicans needed to avoid
completely alienating Hispanic voters. In 2013, his amendment in the
Judiciary Committee would
have permitted those here unlawfully to obtain legal status, but not be
granted citizenship. He said, “I want immigration reform to pass. And
so I would urge people of good faith on both sides of the aisle, if the
objective is to pass common sense immigration
reform that secures the borders, that improves legal immigration, and
that allows those who are here illegally to come in out of the shadows,
then we should look for areas of bipartisan agreement and compromise to
come together. And this amendment, I believe
if this amendment were to pass, the chances of this bill passing into
law would increase dramatically.” (See link here, “Cruz 3” around the
5-minute mark.)
Despite
his recent backtracking, Sen. Cruz was right. A compromise along the
lines of legal status but not citizenship might have been acceptable to
House Republicans.
To become more acceptable to Democrats, one might have needed to modify
the amendment, such as by allowing those brought here as children to
naturalize, but the idea of legal status but no citizenship was
discussed among many pro-reform advocates. (See here.)
Today,
the most misleading statements from Sen. Ted Cruz are not that he did
not really support legal status for those here unlawfully. He did,
including lawful permanent residence. (Watch the video link of Cruz above.) He is misleading
Republican primary voters by implying that efforts by Rubio and others
to improve the chances a Republican wins the White House should never
have been attempted. Both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz
are positioning themselves to win the Republican nomination as if that
is the final objective, not defeating a Democratic opponent in the
general election.
To
single-issue opponents of immigration and Republican members of
Congress in safe seats, it may not matter much if a Republican wins the
White House. However, if you
are conservative and care about a conservative Supreme Court, repealing
Obamacare, pro-market environmental policies, less regulation of the
Internet, lower taxes, a stronger national defense, an improved foreign
policy and a host of other important issues,
then it should matter to you a great deal whether a Republican or
Democrat wins the next presidential election, as well as the ones after
that.
In
a National Review article last year entitled “Will Hispanic voters
prevent Republicans from Winning the White House,” GOP campaign veteran
Myra Adams wrote, “What do
these historical trends mean for Republican presidential prospects in
2016? Most likely, Republicans will not win back the White House in 2016
unless there is a radical course correction within the party resulting
in a major reversal in Hispanic/Latino voting
trends well established since 1980.”
Adams
concluded, “Now consider this new demographic wave sweeping across our
nation. Younger Hispanics are fast becoming an empowered voting bloc,
with 50,000 teenagers
turning 18 every month for the next two decades. There is no doubt that
they will transform America, its policies, and its presidential
politics. Thus, unless the Republican Party has a plan to woo younger
Hispanic voters, the GOP faces the very real possibility
that George W. Bush will be our nation’s last Republican president.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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