Sound familiar? It should. Restrictionist members of the GOP have been playing the 'immigrant' card on nearly every major piece of legislation that's come before Congress this session. They started off playing politics with sick kids, but now they are holding jobs for unemployed Americans hostage in order to score cheap political points on the backs of America's most vulnerable workers and families. A familiar bloc of Republican Senators (PDF) are protesting the Senate jobs bill over supposed fears that the bill’s tax credits for employers would be used to employ unauthorized immigrants. The reality, according to The Hill, is that the very language in this current jobs bill is the same as language first introduced by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah in tax rebate legislation. In short, it is already against the law to hire unauthorized workers. Reality, however, is rarely the issue with this debate. The thinly-veiled excuse to oppose legislation based on the "illegal immigration" boogeyman is a worn-out strategy used again and again by some GOP lawmakers, who draw on research by extreme groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, (FAIR), a recognized hate group, to make their points. These groups have urged their Republican allies to play the "immigrant" card in the stimulus bill, SCHIP, healthcare, the financial crisis, the flu pandemic, and even global warming. As America's Voice Executive Director Frank Sharry has argued: ...this is a familiar page from the GOP playbook: play off of people's anxieties over illegal immigration with lies and distortion in order to delay or derail something largely unrelated. Clearly, many members of the GOP have not learned the lessons of the 2006 and 2008 elections when it comes to immigration and Latino voters. In one of the most dramatic swings in recent electoral history, the efforts by President Bush and Karl Rove to win over Latino voters, especially Latino immigrant voters, was completely hijacked after 2005 by the right wing revolt against comprehensive immigration reform and the demonization of hard-working immigrant families. For example, Spanish-dominant voters had supported John Kerry in 2004 by a narrow margin -- 52 percent to 48 percent. In 2008 Barack Obama won a much larger chunk of the Spanish-dominant electorate: by a hefty margin of 75 percent to 25 percent. Well, as we noted yesterday (citing the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal), key Republicans have been calling on the party to change its tune on immigration to be more welcoming to Latino voters. Not only is the Party alienating Latino voters in its quest to play politics with the immigration crisis, but it is missing a golden opportunity to meet people where they are and embrace a common-sense solution supported by the vast majority of American voters. Also, as we've been arguing this week, this split in Republican vision was on full display at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which featured “diametrically opposed themes” on immigration, according to CQ Politics. On one side, according to conservative leaders Grover Norquist and Linda Chavez: "You can’t talk to someone from the immigrant community, threaten to deport their relative and then ask them to vote with you because you’re pro-life…some conservatives and some Republicans have used harsh and insulting rhetoric that has chased away Hispanic voters unnecessarily,” and former Reagan official Linda Chavez noted, “I want to see conservatives triumph in the United States…If you share that view, then we better begin to figure out a way to talk about immigration that does not alienate the fastest-growing demographic in the United States.” The other side featured such anti-immigration zealots as former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), who has published an anti-immigration book, Whatever it Takes, in which he likened Republican support for tough anti-immigrant measures as a way “to stand up for our culture.” At CPAC, in remarks at a screening of the film Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration, Hayworth said, of the immigration crisis: This is an invasion that must be stopped. Not only does this kind of talk represent lousy politics and shameful politicking, but the ‘blame the immigrants’ approach to legislation will doom any attempts to improve outreach and credibility with the Latino electorate moving forward. The good news is that the GOP playing the 'immigrant' card last year didn't stop sick kids from getting coverage. Let's work to make sure it doesn't keep unemployed Americans from getting back to work. Cross-Posted at America's Voice. |
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