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Posted on 11/26/2002, 12:21:04 AM by gubamyster
November 25, 2002
Republicans made modest gains among Hispanic voters in the November elections, but they won't do so in the future - and shouldn't - unless President Bush and Congress start moving again on immigration reform. But senior Bush administration officials say that will not happen for the same reason reform got stopped in the first place last year - terrorism concerns.
"We'd like to find some way to make progress next year, but it depends on how fast the Homeland Security Department gets its act together," one top Bush official told me. "We've got to be able to say we're doing a better job of controlling the borders and monitoring who's here, why they're here and whether they are doing what they said they would do - especially students and workers."
This official indicated that nothing of substance will happen on the immigration front this week when Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft meet their counterparts for binational talks in Mexico City.
Mexican officials and pro-immigrant groups had hoped that the president would appoint a high-level special envoy to work on the topic, but the Bush official ruled it out.
"We've sent a new ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, who is personally close to the president. He's the one to handle this," the official said. Garza formerly was Texas railroad commissioner when Bush was governor.
Even though Latino voters identify themselves as Democrats by a 2-1 margin, Bush enjoys an approval rating among Latinos that nearly matches that among the U.S. population.
Former Vice President Al Gore beat Bush among Latinos by 62 percent to 35 percent in 2000, but one recent poll showed that Bush would beat Gore in a rematch, 50-35.
Bush's popularity among Latinos evidently rubbed off on his party in the midterm elections. GOP Congressional candidates secured 39 percent of the Latino vote, up from 34 percent in 2000, according to the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.
The president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), received 51 percent of the non-Cuban Hispanic vote in Florida. New York Gov. George Pataki (R) polled 50 percent among Latinos, up from 25 percent in 1998. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) polled 35 percent against a Mexican-American Democrat.
Obviously these Republicans earned support on their own, but Bush has helped put a friendly face on the GOP for Latinos - partly because of his early moves on immigration reform.
In the presence of Mexican President Vicente Fox last year, Bush declared that "there are many in our country who are undocumented, and we want to make sure that their work is legal." Bush said that he would consider ways to allow guest workers and illegal immigrants to work their way toward permanent resident status.
That was on Sept. 6, 2001. On Sept. 10, White House staffers and pro-immigrant groups began discussing ways that illegal immigrants might earn their way toward green cards and citizenship by having clean work records, paying fines and learning English.
All that stopped the following day, when the government's attention understandably turned to the problem of border security and the pathetic inability of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to track actual terrorists.
Since the terrorist attacks, whenever U.S. and Mexican officials have met - as Fox and Bush did last month at the Asian-Pacific economic summit in Mexico - all the U.S. side has had to say about immigration is "It's on our agenda."
It deserves to move higher on the Bush agenda - for practical, humanitarian and political reasons.
"If they are waiting for the immigration service to get itself reorganized, it will take years," said Frank Sharry, president of the National Immigration Forum.
"What they need to understand is that the way to improve border security is to have a binational agreement with Mexico that legalizes the people who are here and encourages the Mexicans to strictly patrol their side of the border," added Sharry. "The way it is now, Fox politically can't afford to do more than make gestures on border enforcement when he's got thousands of people pressing to get across to find jobs."
From a humanitarian standpoint, the United States ought to stop forcing people to risk their lives sneaking into this country and instead establish an orderly, legal guest-worker program. Republican business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the restaurant industry and agricultural interests, favor that.
"From a humanitarian standpoint, the United States ought to stop forcing people to risk their lives sneaking into this country and instead establish an orderly, legal guest-worker program. Republican business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the restaurant industry and agricultural interests, favor that.
What imbicile thinks the US is forcing illegals to sneak into our country? These people must be clueless. It makes me furious that we have to subsidize their illegal presence just so the "Republican business groups" can get cheap help.
More verisimilitude and illogic from the cheap labor immigration industry front. The "gains" weren't made on the immigration issue, what does that tell you? Well, it tells that increasing immigration is not a good issue, and the cheap labor forces are striving for talking points to prove otherwise.
In other words amnesty. But ssshhhh. Let's not call it that.
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No thanks.
Yes. I just don't believe people should take it upon themselves to "purge" illegal aliens. We have elections to decide these sort of issues.
Win big with whom? Pete Wilson won big in California for preaching the opposite of what you want Bush to do... appease the Latino special interest groups with endless amnesties while doing nothing to control our borders.
Here's my scenario: Bush puts the military on the border, and cracks down hard on employers hiring illegal aliens in order to prevent the focus of attention being on the illegals themselves. That could go a long way toward preventing the crybaby stories from the media.
By doing this, two things will happen: first, more illegals will be prevented from coming in, and second, since those here will not be able to find employment, you can count on some of them anyway to self-deport. Law enforcement too could help by turning over all illegals they encounter to the INS.
Not a perfect solution, but by doing so Bush will gain support on top of what he already has from those who want this nonsense to stop, including from legal Hispanics. The last thing we should do is reward these lawbreakers.
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