GOP CAVE ON IMMIGRATION

BACKGROUND

It is understandable that the next GOP acceptance of reality, after withdrawing their threat to shut down the economy, (BLOG: The GOP – A Mad Hatters’ Tea Party), of the results of the recent Presidential Election, is adoption of Obama’s Immigration Policy. Obama mobilized the Latino vote and turned it into a key winning demographic. If the Republicans do not address that fact, they can forever end their Presidential electoral hopes. Up till Bush 43’s election the Latinos aspirations were largely ignored and their support was just taken for granted. Bush, the second, or the lesser as he has been uncharitably called, got 44% of the Latino vote just for being there.

* Obama

Obama offered recognition to the minority group and in the election there was far greater participation of the Latinos,  slashing the Republican support too less than 30%. The Latinos had turned the swing states of Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico States into Democratic strongholds and threatened further inroads in the South – even Texas in a decade or less would not be safe.

Obama had appointed a Latino to the Supreme Court and three others to his Cabinet. Obama appointed nearly 50 Latinos to key administrative positions. He also granted brief “amnesty” to Latino youth that had been brought to America as children and now sought legitimization - a small gesture to the real victims of the system.

 However, all this was enough to empower those originating from South America to realize that they were a force to be reckoned with. Even without the 11 million “illegals” their numbers were growing to be the decisive force in American politics.

 *Republicans

It was no surprise that the Republicans hit rock bottom with the Latinos in the last election. Their standard bearer Mitt Romney’s solution to the immigration problem was that they should “self deport”. The rest of the policy wonks were largely silent and thus allowed what was going on Southern Republican States to become the Republican policy on immigration policy for the “illegals”.

The State of Arizona led the way in 2010 with her controversial law whereby anyone could be apprehended if there was “reasonable suspicion” that he or she was an undocumented immigrant. There did not have to be suspicion of a crime or even a parking violation. There was an indecent rush by Republican controlled States to follow suit and Utah, Indiana, South Carolina. Georgia and Alabama followed with similar or even stricter Immigration legislation.

No matter that the legislation was impacted upon by court challenges this was the face of the Republican Party on “illegal” immigrants.

It must be pointed out that these “illegals” are in multiple of differing situations. There are workers that have been here for decades, there are relatives that have joined “legals” including parents and children and of course there are the gang members and criminals. (Obama incidentally has deported more “criminals” than any of his predecessors). However, the main reason these peoples are in the USA is that they have work. Their employers are “illegally” employing them on occasion exploiting their status.

With the above in mind the Republican policy was a total non-sequitur in relation to the reality of the situation and some ways one wonders how they even got thirty percent of Latino vote.

They have to be many who are now saying, “What were we thinking?”

OBAMA AND BIPARTISAN SENATE IMMIGRATION PROPOSALS.

Both a Senate Bipartisan Committee and the President announced proposals to rectify this bizarre situation. The plans were very similar. Both Obama and the Senate group have been working on these proposals for some time The President, as one might expect, presented his in front of an adoring throng in Las Vegas, Nevada where the Latinos had turned a marginal state into a comfortable win for Obama.

The ad hoc Senate Committee used a conventional Press Conference to outline their principles. The group included heavy weights on both sides of the aisle – Durbin, Menendez and Schumer, (Democrats) and Rubio, McCain and Lindsay Graham, (Republicans).

Both the proposals were very similar and can be looked at under certain rubrics:

* Citizenship

Both the Senate and the POTUS gave paths to citizenship. They allowed for provisional registration and then set a pathway to attain a green card and finally naturalization. Everyone has to pay back taxes and so forth and so on.

Both proposals supported a faster track for first-degree relatives, young brought here by parents and the very skilled and educated.  As might be expected Obama would afford same sex couples the same rights, i.e. e if a non citizen gay married a citizen gay the partner would be granted a green card just like a "straight" marriage.

The essential difference between the two is that the path to citizenship in the Senate proposal only starts when Border Security is tightened up. Obama says border security is good enough now not to hold up anything.

* Border Security

Both plans also recognize without proper border security the problem will never be solved as once the new proposal was in place there would be a mad rush to cross the border. Border Security of course would be beefed up in both proposals.

* Employer Verification.

Many have argued that the problem really lies with the employers who presently escape unscathed. Nobody blames them for employing undocumented workers and by all accounts exploit them. Both proposals seek to rectify this situation with registration and fines for noncompliance. The employers cannot have it both ways – if they need the labor then they have to take the responsibility of ensuring that their employees are documented and then pay them appropriate wages.

RESPONSE  - LIMBAUGH WAYS IN AND SUPPORTS CANDIDATE RUBIO

There were responses from the usual suspects. The hard right maintained that this was “amnesty” – a sell out to the “illegals” that were stealing jobs from the Americans.  The hard left was not so sold on Obama’s reassurance that the time for immigration reform was now. After all he had promised this in his first term.

At the end of the day it depends on the legislature, particularly the House of Representatives, who are to a large extent guided by their moneyed sponsors and or their unelected megalomaniac policymakers.

The Republican media megalomaniac deluxe is Rush Limbaugh. His behavior of late has been decidedly practical. Limbaugh successfully counseled the House Republicans not to hold the country to ransom on debt ceilings and the like. He recognized the negative impact the Republicans were having by ransoming the country’s credit ratings by their childish behavior. It is fair to say, outside the really, really big money donors, Rush is the most powerful force in the leaderless Republican Party. That is what makes his discussion with Republican Latino Mark Rubio and member of the Senate bipartisan group and potential Presidential candidate so significant.

Mark Rubio, presidential hopeful, ostensibly put Limbaugh on the spot. He called in to Limbaugh’s radio show and Limbaugh supported him. In order to do so he created a straw man. Limbaugh maintained that the problem was that the President was not prepared to support border security. Obvious garbage but leaves Limbaugh room to support immigration reform, when the POTUS, ostensibly caves in on border security. Also Limbaugh gave Rubio the go ahead and anointed him tell him what he was doing was necessary and “noteworthy”.

If it needs repeating Limbaugh is THE chief unelected media guru of the GOP. Rubio did not stop there he appeared on the other Conservative media shows including Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee and Mark Levin. He has been hailed as the Republican’s hope of garnering Latino vote. He has changed his mind on immigration as he was initially against this plan. He joins McCain who for the election also opposed this type of pathway to citizenship after originally supporting it. So McCain has done the full circle. (McCain unhappily is bereft of credibility. The only way one can interpret his behavior at present is that he is nothing but an angry and embittered man. So who knows he could change his mind again).

Rubio is taking a calculated risk. He will offend the Conservatives and put distance between himself and Rand Paul. However he has to realize that if the Republicans do not make inroads into the growing Latino vote the nomination for Presidency is useless anyway. He is also gambling that the Republicans are going to support this change anyway and he is right. This they will do even if it splits the Republican caucus.

Rubio with the other Republicans in the bipartisan group have started the bandwagon rolling. May as well be seen to be driving the wagon rather than jumping on under pressure.

SO WHAT NEXT

It all has a long way to go but the support of Immigration Reform leading to Citizenship is a major cave of the present day Republicans and their acceptance of the new reality of American politics.

Rubio’s clout with the Latinos is limited. He is of Cuban origin. The latter have always supported the Republicans as they have backed that group’s desire never to recognize Castro or lift sanctions on Cuba. One of these days the time will come to reverse this antiquated policy. Maybe we can use the Russians to mediate a truce and convince the Cuban refugees and their brethren that the Cold War is over. Also they can point out that even though the US has more Russian refugees than Cuban, they have not insisted that we boycott Russia.

As a postscript John Avalon of “The Daily Beast” has noted the similarities between Obama’s immigration plan and the one introduced by George W. Bush, 43, in 2006. This serves to emphasize two points: how far right the Party has gone in such a short space of time and that politics is all about timing. If you don’t believe Jay H. Ell ask Lincoln.