Republicans and the Immigration Wedge Issue
By Allert Brown-Gort

Some members of the GOP have apparently settled on immigration as a solution to their major problem this fall, namely, how to get their voters out when the party is extremely demoralized. The war in Iraq, the Abramoff and Cunningham corruption scandals, Katrina, torture, Plame-gate, hunting accidents, Dubai… the list goes on and on. As they read the polls and the November elections near, many Republican candidates are looking for an issue on which they can both distance themselves from the President and arouse some passion in their supporters — something that could make the constituents forget all the problems and turn out to vote. In short, they are looking for a good wedge issue.

But is immigration policy a wedge issue, or is it a legitimate response from statesmen worried about our security and national integrity? There is widespread agreement that what the country needs is comprehensive reform, that is a program that both reforms and enforces: it changes immigration laws to conform more closely to a globalized economy and provides operational control of the borders. Nevertheless, this past December the House passed HR 4437, by all accounts a draconian bill that concentrates exclusively on punitive enforcement measures. Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced last week a compromise position that would strengthen border enforcement while putting in place mechanisms for regularizing some of the millions of undocumented immigrants who are already here, as well as creating a guest worker program. But that same day Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, stated that he would be presenting his own hard-line enforcement bill as an alternative to the committee’s. Once again, enforcement is the name of the game.

It is abundantly clear that enforcement only policies do not really work: since 1993 the number of Border Patrol agents has tripled from some 3,400 to 12,000 (and the budget has increased even faster, to pay for cameras, sensors, and other technologies). During the same period the number of undocumented immigrants grew from approximately 3.9 to an estimated 11.5 million today. If we apply a famous definition of insanity as performing the same action repeatedly while expecting a different result, then HR 4437, with its massive increase of agents and technology, is clearly a work of insanity. Since our Representatives can be called many things, but not insane, then this looks like an attempt to create a wedge issue.

Will it deliver the goods? The reality is that using immigration to scare voters offers the GOP uncertain short-term gains, and certain long-term losses.

Even in the short-term, immigration scare tactics are problematic. Obviously this is an agenda designed for immediate appeal to social conservatives, but unlike previous wedge issues such as flag burning and gay marriage, it would create active resistance from the other principal Republican constituency — business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other important business groups have raised the alarm about enforcement-only approaches to the immigration issue because of concern about impending labor shortages.

The Dubai World Ports debacle is instructive in its demonstration of the political dangers of pushing too far an agenda that only suits one side. Initially an action that was tailored to please only business interests, it enraged the social conservatives in the GOP, for whom security is a watchword. However, the resulting reaction in the Congress has now severely worried the business faction of the Party.

Besides, not all social conservatives would necessarily respond as expected. Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles sent a strong signal with his Ash Wednesday message that the Catholic Church sees the immigration issue as an important social justice concern. And it is likely also a concern for many Protestant denominations, given the rapid growth of their Latino congregations. If Catholics and other faith-based groups that in recent elections have been leaning Republican are put off by the clarion call and fail to turn out to vote, then the GOP risks massive losses in November.

For a demonstration of the likely long-term effects, the model is California. A dozen years after Governor Pete Wilson’s Proposition 187 anti-immigrant campaign, the California GOP has yet to recover any standing with the Latino community. Nationally, Latinos have been much more likely than African Americans to be either Republicans or Independents. They are culturally predisposed to be socially conservative and, given the demographic makeup of the country, represent one of the most important pools of future voters. But in California even non-immigrant Latinos felt as if they were used as the scapegoat for Gov. Wilson and his presidential ambitions, and they have yet to either forgive or forget.

Despite the rapid growth of the community, to date the Latino vote has been much more aspirational than concrete. This is not surprising, given the highly immigrant makeup of the adult population and the young age of many US-born Latinos. But this situation is rapidly changing. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, some 500,000 Latinos born in this country are reaching voting age every year, a trend that will only accelerate.

Driving Latinos away from the GOP at the same time as their share of the electorate is growing forecasts difficult times ahead for the Republicans if they choose to use immigration as a wedge issue.

No one doubts that the immigration system is broken and that we must act with dispatch to fix it. However, documented or not, we are talking about millions of human beings — people who subsidize the lifestyle of a majority of Americans with their hard work. They — and we — deserve better than cheap demagoguery, a tactic that in any case is unlikely to provide the desired results for the Republican party.

Allert Brown-Gort is associate director of the Institute for Latino Studies and a Fellow at the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.