The Hispanic vote
The article below argues that the Hispanic vote is up for grabs given disappointment with Obama. It ignores the fact that the GOP would alienate its base if it were more sympathetic to illegals.
So I think this election is really about turnout. Either a lot of Hispanics will stay home or a lot of conservatives will stay home. The stage is set for it to be Hispanics.
Although President Obama garnered overwhelming Latino support in the 2008 election, many Latino leaders have expressed concern with the president’s lack of zeal in fulfilling campaign promises (a recurring, disappointing theme across the entire demographic spectrum of Obama voters, including myself). One of the president’s pledges during the ’08 campaign that resonated with many Hispanic voters: a promise for comprehensive immigration reform that would include providing millions of undocumented Latinos, currently living in the United States, a path towards American citizenship or some type of legal status.
Truth be told, under President Obama’s administration deportations have risen by 30 percent than under his predecessor. As leaders of the traditionally liberal, Latino voting blocs in the West and Northeast began to ingest those numbers, the administration felt compelled last summer to reveal that ICE was now going to prioritize the deportation of convicted felons rather than focusing on the now infamous abuelitas that Newt Gingrich sought to protect from deportation during the Florida debates.
Common sense and a hint of political savvy would indicate that the door is ajar — enough for Republicans to barge in and press Obama on this issue, thereby courting moderate Latino voters and theoretically attracting more Latino votes, particularly in key states like Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Unfortunately, the immigration issue in the Republican primary debates had been reduced to echoing layers of jingoistic buzz words and simplistic rhetoric. This not only falls well short of holistically addressing the complex quandary of illegal immigration but also risks alienating Latino Republicans who are discouraged by their party’s shortsightedness.
Former state legislator Juan Carlos Zapata, a Republican, insightfully pointed out to me this week that “one of the major issues being ignored in the immigration debate is the significant economic contribution that the ‘illegal’ population already makes and could potentially increase if they were afforded a path to legal status. . . . On the flip side of that,” the Colombian American added, “no candidate is addressing the feasibility of rounding up over 11 million people and deporting them. What are those figures in terms of costs?”
Granted, in Florida, immigration status does not resonate that prominently as a campaign issue as it does in other parts of the country. That’s mostly because Puerto Ricans, who are concentrated in central Florida, are U.S. citizens at birth. Cuban immigrants, concentrated in South Florida, are granted political exile status and receive preferential treatment over all other nationalities in terms of their accessibility to American citizenship.
The Cuban Adjustment Act is an outdated, unfair Cold War-era relic. I’m hard pressed to believe that the bulk of Cubans arriving on our shores today are political refugees when one day and a year after attaining permanent U.S. residency many are hopping flights to visit Cuba, the very country that was so politically intolerable that they left it — but that is a different issue ripe for another day.
Raquel Regalado, a Cuban-American Republican and member of the Miami Dade School Board, says she’s concerned about the stance her party is taking on immigration because it does not tackle the real-life consequences of immigrants living in the shadows. “By not comprehensively addressing the issue of immigration, the problem seeps into most facets of our governing infrastructure — healthcare, education, you name it.”
Regalado and Zapata are among a cadre of Hispanic Republicans pressing their party leaders to cool it on the hurtful immigrant bashing and work on attracting Latino voters.
SOURCE
Immigration critics say governer is welcoming ‘illegal aliens’ to Florida
A Florida immigration restrictionist group put up a billboard this week saying Gov. Rick Scott is welcoming “illegal aliens” to Florida. Located near the Georgia border, the billboard reads: “Welcome Illegal Aliens: We offer jobs, free health care, education and welfare. Thank Governor Scott.”
Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, the group responsible for the billboard, writes: “This is a wakeup call for Florida Governor Rick Scott who promised Floridians he would work to get mandatory E-Verify enacted to protect our legal workers. He has remained silent and has failed to use the power of the Governor’s office to help get E-Verify enacted.” E-Verify is the electronic federal database used to verify if a job applicant is authorized to work in the U.S.
Floridians for Immigration Enforcement adds that it is time for Scott to fulfill his campaign promise and make E-Verify mandatory for all Florida employers, asking, “Will Florida Republican Leadership AGAIN Block E-Verify?” The group writes that state Rep. Gayle Harrell‘s bill filed early January that would require every private employer to use E-Verify “has yet to have a hearing in either the House or Senate.”
One of Scott’s first acts as governor was to sign an executive order requiring that all state agencies — and all companies that enter contracts with state agencies — use E-Verify to check the employment elligibility of their workers. Last May, Scott quietly issued another executive order which supersedes the one signed in January 2011. Scott said in August 2011 that the federal government needs to do its job: Secure the border, implement a national immigration policy and create a work visa program that actually works.
That same month, when he spoke at a conservative gathering, Scott delivered the same message adding that, “I tried to get an [immigration] bill passed last year. It got through the Senate. It didn’t make it through the House. It will happen this session.”
Immigrant advocate groups, opposed to measures like E-Verify, said this week that the employment authorization program is included in highly controversial immigration “attrition through enforcement” state laws in Alabama, Arizona and Georgia.
Opponents of E-Verify during Florida’s 2011 legislative session included business groups like the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.
SOURCE
Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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