Seventy-nine percent of those with “less tolerant” views on immigration, as ABC News put it, said immigration would be a “top issue” in their vote.44
As long as Bush had brought it up, Americans said they wanted to stop legal immigration, too. In the Quinnipiac poll, 72 percent of respondents wanted immigration to decrease or stay at the same levels (39 percent for “decrease,” and 33 percent for “stay the same”). In the Pew Hispanic Center poll, 77 percent of Americans wanted immigration to decrease or stay the same (40 percent to 37 percent). Even in the New York Times/CBS poll, 73 percent opposed an increase in legal immigration (34 percent for “decreased” and 39 percent “kept at present level”).45
More Americans support Obamacare than support an increase in legal immigration.
Gallup found that nearly 60 percent of Americans considered the country’s future “population growth” a “major problem”—and those with “less formal education” were “most likely to correctly attribute population growth to immigration, while Americans with post-graduate education are least likely to do so.”46 Apart from the maid, immigration is barely noticeable in the better neighborhoods.
Midterm elections, the New York Times has said, “tend to be won by whichever side can motivate more true believers to vote.” There’s no question but that Bush’s push for amnesty in 2006 infuriated his base. In June 2006, influential conservative leaders including Brent Bozell, Phyllis Schlafly, and Howard Phillips issued a statement lambasting the amnesty plan being pushed by Bush, as well as a “compromise” measure proposed by Republican Congressman Mike Pence. The leaders pledged to oppose any member of Congress who voted for either bill.47
YOU’VE GOT ONE MOVE, GOP
It’s a sucker’s game to think that Republicans can ever get to the Democrats’ left on immigration. A terrible year for Democrats is winning only 60 percent of the Hispanic vote. The vast majority of the Democrats’ ethnic base is voting for them no matter what. There could have been a 1929 stock market crash in 2012, and Obama would still have won more than 90 percent of the black vote and upward of 70 percent of the Hispanic and Asian vote. When they’re being honest, Democrats admit that Republicans “are delusional if they think they’re making any inroads with Latinos,” as Texas Democratic Party spokesman Rebecca Acuna said in 2012. Acuna noted that out of 728 elected Hispanic officials in Texas, 668 of them were Democrats. Only 60 were Republicans.48
The GOP’s only move is to run the table on white voters, as Reagan did.
By unapologetically opposing the transformation of America into a Third World country, the GOP would sweep the white vote—once white people recovered from the shock of any candidate asking for their vote. Why should Republicans be ashamed of getting white votes? How about the party work on getting more of them? By fighting for black jobs, Republicans will also win a lot more black voters—as Romney did in 2012, winning a jaw-dropping 20 percent of the young black male vote.49
Unfortunately, the public’s opinion is of little interest to Republican consultants who have hefty college tuition bills to pay. Their solitary interest is in pleasing big donors by constantly apologizing to Hispanics for not moving fast enough on amnesty. They would rather engineer a forty-nine-state defeat than abandon the cheap-labor advocates on immigration.
What might these genius GOP operatives think about a presidential candidate running ads bashing immigrant welfare scams? Something like: “She is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.” What if a Republican presidential candidate accused self-appointed Hispanic leaders of running “organizations based on keeping alive the feeling that they’re victims of prejudice”? I’m guessing that wouldn’t impress the big thinkers in the GOP who are squeamish about “self-deportation.”
But Reagan said all that—and was called a racist.50 And he won the largest electoral landslide in history.
17
MOST OF OUR CHAMPIONS ARE SELLOUTS—HALF OF THE REST ARE INCOMPETENT
THE PRACTICED LIARS IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY KNOW DAMN WELL Americans do not want more immigration, but the leadership won’t give it up. To please well-heeled donors, elected Republicans compulsively push for amnesty, in-state tuition, driver’s licenses, and welfare payments to illegals. And the media cover for them: Don’t worry, we won’t write about what you’re doing with immigration! And if we do, it will only be to talk about your moral courage, Marco. Only when they need actual voters do Republicans suddenly start saying: “Complete the dang fence!” (2008 McCain campaign).
It’s always interesting to see what politicians lie about. At least they know what’s actually popular with voters. Back when he was running for office, Senator Marco Rubio criticized “comprehensive immigration reform,” saying, an “‘earned path to citizenship’ is basically code for ‘amnesty.’”1 He pledged, “I will never support—never have, and never will support—any effort to grant blanket legalization amnesty to folks who have entered this country illegally.”2 Then Rubio got to Washington and spent the next three years pushing for amnesty. Representative Renee Ellmers of North Carolina came out for a path to legalization and, as a result, was headed for defeat, until Mark Zuckerberg came to her rescue with election ads that claimed her position was “No amnesty. Period.” Within a month of returning to Congress, Ellmers voted in favor of Obama’s executive amnesty. I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word “period” is.
So we know they know where Americans stand on immigration. (Please stop!) In February 2015, more Americans said they had a favorable opinion of North Korea (11 percent)3 than wanted to increase immigration (7 percent).4
The baffling question is why Americans are so utterly incapable of influencing public policy on immigration. True, all the money and power are on the other side of the issue. Zuckerberg, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson, Rudy Giuliani—all of them support amnesty and mass immigration. But the rich and powerful also support gun control and abortion—again, Zuckerberg, Murdoch, Bloomberg, Adelson, and Giuliani. Money and power don’t seem to help them on those issues.
It is impossible to imagine a Republican candidate for president who is not pro-life and pro-gun. But it’s becoming increasingly impossible to imagine a Republican candidate for president who doesn’t support amnesty—Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, George, Jeb, Zeppo, and Shemp Bush. Why is that? At least as many Americans would like to see a total immigration moratorium as support gun rights and oppose abortion. So why does National Right to Life have decisive influence over the Republican Party, while Numbers USA has none? Why do Gun Owners of America always win, while immigration opponents always lose? More Americans oppose amnesty than oppose restrictions on guns. But even after the mass shooting at a grade school in Newtown, Connecticut, Congress was able to enact no new gun laws. By contrast, even after immigrants bombed the Boston Marathon, Congress went ahead and funded Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty.
The reason the National Rifle Association wins is because it knows how politics works. Gun activists do not try to discern what a politician believes in his heart or try to take the measure of the man. They look at voting records—specifically, a politician’s record on guns. Rather famously, the NRA will not oppose any politician who votes right on guns, no matter how awful he is on every other issue (Harry Reid); and they will not support a politician who opposes gun rights no matter how wonderful he is on other issues (Rudy Giuliani). The NRA doesn’t demand some impossible political purity. If a politician votes to protect gun rights, the NRA won’t insist that he also celebrate “Gun Appreciation Day.” Vote for gun rights and you will be rewarded on Election Day; oppose gun rights and you will be punished. Left to their consultants, most elected officials would be terrified to oppose gun control. Instead, they’re terrified to oppose the NRA.
By contrast, most immigration opponents seem to have no concept
of how to influence politicians. They announce that Senator Jeff Sessions or Representative Steve King are the only acceptable presidential candidates, and think their job is done. Consequently, Americans who would like to vote on immigration have no idea which governors granted illegals in-state tuition and which governors vetoed those bills. Conservative leaders won’t tell them. Their long-term plan is to keep demanding that Jeff Sessions run for president and stay home and pout if Tom Tancredo isn’t anywhere on the ballot. There are plenty of enticements for selling out on immigration, but none for doing the right thing.
If the NRA behaved this way, the country would be living under the policies of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. How about we look at politicians’ actual records on this one issue? America’s suicidal immigration policies are the single biggest threat facing the nation. What happens with immigration will determine whether America continues to exist or becomes a Third World republic that will never elect another Republican—in other words, “California.” It’s more important than gun rights, right to life, taxes, or Iran’s nuclear program—or whatever other issue you care to cite, because immigration will decide all issues, once and for all, in favor of the Democrats.
VOTER GUIDE
Now ask yourself if you had any idea where the following presidential candidates stood on immigration and tell me if immigration activists are doing their job.
JEB BUSH
Jeb Bush is what’s known as “a wolf in wolf’s clothing” on immigration. As governor of Florida he aggressively pushed a bill that would allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses, less than three years after thirteen of nineteen terrorists in the September 11 attack had used Florida driver’s licenses to board the planes.5 (And Jeb is supposed to be “the smart one.”) In 2012, Jeb openly refused to endorse Romney before the Florida primary because of Romney’s opposition to amnesty. He made it well known to the press that he was offended by Romney’s statement that illegal aliens would “self-deport” when the jobs dried up. The day before the primary, Laura Bush showed up in Sarasota, Florida, and announced that both she and George wished Jeb were in the race.6
Demonstrating the Bush family’s uncanny feel for the concerns of ordinary Americans, the next day Romney swept the Florida primary, winning 46 percent of the vote in an eight-person field. He did better among Florida’s Hispanic voters than with Republican voters at large. Throughout the rest of the year, Jeb kept running to the press saying Romney should “tone down his harsh rhetoric on issues like illegal immigration,” as the New York Times admiringly put it. This was fantastically helpful in a close presidential election. About once a month since then, one or another Bush has issued a statement lecturing Republicans about Romney’s “harsh tone” on immigration.7 This always makes the New York Times swoon. Needless to say, the Times could barely contain its esteem for Jeb when, in April 2014, he called illegal immigration “an act of love.”8
RICK PERRY
Texas Governor Rick Perry pushed for Texas’s in-state tuition for illegals and then lectured Republicans about it, saying, “If you say that we should not educate children who’ve come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.” (Romney’s response: “I think if you’re opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a heart, it means that you have a heart and a brain.”)9 Perry opposes E-Verify.10 He also opposes a fence, either on the grounds that he has that witty quip about ladders11 or because “the idea that you’re going to build a wall from Brownsville to El Paso, it’s just—it’s ridiculous on its face.”12 (Wait until Perry hears about the Great Wall of China!) He opposed the Arizona law allowing state officers to check the immigration status of those they detained, as did Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.13
CHRIS CHRISTIE
Governor Chris Christie was famously duped by Senator Chuck Schumer into supporting comprehensive immigration reform. Schumer considered Christie such a patsy that he immediately leaked the news that he had buffaloed Christie on amnesty in a single thirty-minute phone call. Christie’s Senate appointee then voted for the bill. A few months later, Christie doubled down on amnesty by giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens.
RAND PAUL
Senator Rand Paul calls illegal aliens “undocumented citizens” and has fully banished the word “amnesty” from his vocabulary, using the word “normalize” instead. He even refers to Reagan’s amnesty—which everyone calls “amnesty”—as a time “when we normalized people back in 1986.” Paul frequently cites the imaginary tax boon we’ll get by dumping 30 million poor people on the country.14 He coos to illegal immigrants—or “undocumented citizens”—“We will find a place for you” and “We’re saying you don’t have to go home,” demanding that we acknowledge that “we aren’t going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.” Instead of a fence, the libertarian wants the government to tell us when the border is secure.
Under pressure from his base, Paul voted against the Schumer-Rubio amnesty, but promptly backtracked. In under a year, Paul was warning conservatives that “the Hispanic community is not going to hear us until we get beyond this [immigration] issue,”15 and cutting ads for the amnesty-supporting Chamber of Commerce.16 He got fantastic press from the New York Times, which was expected, but he also continued to be cited as a true-blue conservative warrior by alleged conservatives. Even after Paul’s about-face on amnesty, Chris Chocola, then-president of the Club for Growth, hailed him as one of the important tea party conservatives who “influenced the rest of them.”17
RICK SANTORUM
In his twelve years in the Senate, Santorum showed no interest in immigration—a point made by his 2006 Democratic opponent Bob Casey when Santorum tried to use illegal immigration as an election issue. (Republicans are fiercely opposed to immigration whenever they need our votes!) Santorum did vote against the 2006 Kennedy-McCain amnesty,18 but he also voted against sanctions on employers who hire illegals—another point made by Casey, who ended up winning the election.19 In his 2012 presidential campaign, Santorum continued to oppose punishing employers who use illegal alien labor.20
TED CRUZ
In September 2012, Senator Ted Cruz told the New York Times, “I have said many times that I want to see common-sense immigration reform pass.” He expressly rejected the idea of self-deportation, saying that “he had never tried to undo the goal of allowing them to stay.” His main interest in immigration, he told the Times, was the “real need for labor” by farmers and ranchers.21 He said he also wanted to change the law so that even more Mexicans and Chinese could immigrate here legally.
Cruz voted against the Rubio amnesty bill, but proposed amendments to it that would double legal immigration from 675,000 to 1.3 million a year and quintuple the number of “high tech” H-1B visas, from 65,000 to 325,000 per year.22 Even Rubio’s bill only increased “high tech” visas—a.k.a. tickets into the country for Lakireddy Bali Reddy’s concubines—to 180,000 a year.23 Cruz also offered an amendment that would theoretically prevent amnestied illegal aliens from ever obtaining citizenship. Most amnesty opponents breathed a sigh of relief when it failed: It would have been overturned by a court in five minutes, but would have made the amnesty bill deceptively attractive.24
After the Schumer-Rubio bill passed, Cruz blasted it as “amnesty”—a word that few other elected Republicans are willing to use under any circumstances. So perhaps, like Governor Scott Walker, Cruz has flip-flopped to America’s side on immigration. Given the likely field of GOP presidential candidates, purer-than-thou conservatives better get ready to do some flip-flopping of their own on flip-flopping candidates.
MITT ROMNEY
As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney repeatedly vetoed bills giving illegal aliens in-state tuition, and the legislature was never able to override him. He made clear he would also veto any bill allowing driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, so those never made it to his desk. He vetoed a bill
to give health coverage to illegal aliens—but the legislature overruled him. About the time Jeb Bush was pressuring the Florida legislature to give illegals driver’s licenses, Romney sought and received a special agreement with federal immigration officials allowing Massachusetts state troopers to arrest illegal aliens.25 Romney was Jan Brewer before Jan Brewer was Jan Brewer.
For this, Romney was unremittingly attacked by Third World–immigration boosters such as Senator Teddy Kennedy and activist Ali Noorani.26 The Democratic attorney general of Massachusetts, Thomas Reilly, called a press conference to denounce Governor Romney as “mean-spirited” for vetoing the bill to give illegals in-state tuition. In response, Romney invited the press to his office and showed them that the proposed reduction in tuition for illegals would cost the state millions of dollars a year.27
Romney is the only serious presidential candidate ever to support E-Verify and a fence on the border—unequivocally. The media, GOP consultants, the big donors, and the Bush family all attacked him for his suggestion that illegal aliens would “self-deport.” Media darling John McCain blustered to the New Yorker that “everybody agrees” that Romney’s “biggest mistake” was to say “quote, self-deport.” Chuckling at the madness of it, McCain said, “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard that, because you can’t have eleven million people self-deport.” How does McCain think they got here?
Despite ferocious blowback and zero support from people allegedly opposed to amnesty, Romney never backed away from his immigration positions, not even after Rupert Murdoch insisted that he change his position in a private meeting a few months before the election.