IF THERE IS ANY PLACE in America where the anti-immigration message should receive a receptive hearing, it would seem to be Colorado. Few states have been as heavily affected by the influx of immigrants over the past dozen years. The number of immigrants has nearly tripled in that time, and antigrowth and development restrictions are all the rage thanks to the huge population gains (both native-born and immigrant).
Yet every indication is that the closed-border mentality doesn’t play well here politically. The Denver Post recently reported that proponents of a November ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to prohibit the provision of state services to illegal aliens has fallen with a thud for lack of money.
When Ben Nighthorse Campbell unexpectedly announced his retirement from the Senate and popular GOP governor Bill Owens announced he would not run, many people assumed Rep. Tom Tancredo–by far the best-known member of Colorado’s congressional delegation and a solid fiscal conservative–would coast to an easy win in the primary. But Tancredo, the leading anti-immigration voice on Capitol Hill, pulled out. It turns out that while Tancredo’s crusade against immigration has gained him a loyal following among like-thinking conservatives, his political negatives are also in the stratosphere.
Yet Tancredo has a broad following among his colleagues on Capitol Hill. His anti-immigration coalition has 69 mostly conservative Republican members. These Republicans favor an outright moratorium on all immigration–legal and illegal.
One of the few in the party who adamantly rejects this notion is George W. Bush. Immigrants are assets, not liabilities, says Bush. He’s right, of course, but when the White House unveiled his immigration reform proposal back in January, the plan was lambasted as “amnesty” by his conservative critics and has not even found a congressional sponsor. Bush has come under attack for being “soft on illegal immigration,” and this has wounded the Bush-Cheney team with its conservative base.
To preempt such attacks, the plan certainly should have emphasized security issues more prominently. But the gist of the president’s proposal is economically wise, politically sensible, and humane. He would try to reduce illegal immigration by introducing a guest worker program so that migrant workers can come through the border lawfully to do the agricultural work they’ve been doing for 200 years; he would create an earned legalization program for those 8 million illegal immigrant workers already here; and most important he would preserve the legal immigration visa system, so that lawful channels remain open and accessible to those around the globe who aspire to become Americans. The big benefit of the White House plan is that it would allow workers to come and contribute their talents and admirable work ethic, while allowing border security and law enforcement officials to concentrate their resources on keeping out undesirables: potential terrorists, criminals, and public welfare claimants.
So Republicans are now torn between divergent ideologies on immigration–a nativist stand represented by Tancredo and a welcoming one represented by Bush. The tensions are palpable. Pat Buchanan, who wants to bar as many people and goods from coming into the United States as possible, predicts “another Goldwater moment in the Grand Old Party, like 1960, when the grassroots began to rumble and rise in rebellion. . . . Immigration is the most explosive [issue], as is seen in the stunning recoil to Bush’s amnesty early this year.”
But if conservatives are “recoiling” from what Buchanan calls the “immigrant invasion,” where is the electoral evidence? (Buchanan himself, recall, mustered a grand total of 1 percent of the presidential vote in 2000.) The answer is that there is none. In virtually every congressional race in recent years where the issue came up, it has been the candidate who wants to drape a “No Admittance” sign over the Statue of Liberty who lost the election–even in Republican primaries.
Restrictionist themes have been tried many times over in the wake of the 9/11 attacks (as if denying visas to Mexican migrant workers were going to protect us from al Qaeda). On almost every occasion the seal-the-border candidates have fallen. Last year, it was state representative Carl Isett in Texas’s 19th congressional district, running in a special election. This March, it was hard-charging, dynamic state senator Rico Oller in the GOP primary in the third district of California who hammered Dan Lungren mercilessly for supporting “amnesty” in the mid-1980s. Lungren won.
Most recently, in the Republican primary in Illinois, Senate candidate Jim Oberweis spent millions of dollars on immigrant-bashing TV and radio ads but still finished a distant second place, to Jack Ryan, who is pro-immigration.
Buchanan touts upcoming GOP primaries in Arizona and Utah in the coming weeks, where anti-immigration zealots backed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) are hoping to oust pro-immigration incumbent congressmen Jeff Flake, Jim Kolbe, and Chris Cannon. Their alleged sins: endorsing the Bush “amnesty” and alleged political indifference to the tide of illegal immigration. Despite all of the hullabaloo, all three are expected to win their races with relative ease.
Even though the nativists almost never win at the ballot box, the anti-immigration forces contend that our immigration policies are being foisted upon Americans by political elites standing athwart the overwhelming desires of citizens. Groups like FAIR love to trot out polls every few months showing that by about a 2-to-1 margin, voters say they want less immigration. But as American University professor Rita Simon has shown in her book Public Opinion and the Immigrant, for the last 100 years, with rare exceptions, Americans have always said they favor fewer, not more, immigrants.
UNSURPRISINGLY, Americans have complicated and even internally conflicting views on immigration. Republican pollster Ed Goeas reports that voters simultaneously want fewer foreigners admitted and yet are extraordinarily respectful and proud of our unique “nation of immigrants” status. They fear that immigrants take jobs from Americans and collect welfare, but they also agree that immigrants are hardworking, trustworthy, and take jobs Americans won’t do. They fear “mass immigration” but have a very high opinion of the immigrants they know personally.
In some ways the politics of immigration is similar to the politics of free trade. In some local markets with dying industries and lost jobs, protectionism is a political winner. At the statewide level, and much more clearly at the national level, free trade is a political necessity–nationwide, the consumer benefits trump the localized losses. Moreover, anti-immigration, anti-trade candidates expose themselves as fearful of the future and fearful of America’s ability to compete and win. These are unattractive traits to voters.
A final political argument is made by GOP restrictionists: that by allowing in ever more immigrants each year, Republicans are committing electoral suicide. Peter Brimelow, the author of Alien Nation, argues that the increased immigrant populations over the next 20 years will surely make the GOP a permanent minority party, as new ethnic voters tilt close elections into the Democratic camp. Political analyst Dick Morris says that in 10 years, the increased Latino vote will make the GOP uncompetitive in presidential elections.
The problem with this analysis is that if Republicans try to pull up the drawbridge and say no to immigration, they will surely alienate the millions of Latino and Asian voters who are already here–not to mention middle-of-the-road voters who don’t want to be perceived as “mean-spirited.” The big tent starts to collapse if the message to ethnic Americans is: We don’t want any more people who look, speak, or act like you. The difference between Republicans winning 40 percent of the immigrant vote and 30 percent is huge in electoral politics: It is what separates victory from defeat in almost every important battleground state and district. Moreover, as Michael Barone points out, immigrants assimilate politically over time just as they assimilate socially and economically. Those who argue that immigrants will always vote Democratic are guilty of static analysis. If the premise were true, Republicans would never win any elections, since tens of millions of voters are already immigrants or children of immigrants.
What seems undeniable is that Americans almost universally want something done about illegal immigration. What irritates most Americans about the immigration system, and this is particularly true of conservative Republicans, is their sense that the border is out of control; that we reward lawlessness; and that illegal immigrants flout the rules, enter the nation illicitly, stay with impunity, and get public benefits while they are here. The Bush plan, as it happens, would do more to reduce illegal immigration than any other serious alternative. Allowing migrant workers to work lawfully would make the border substantially more manageable.
Moreover, Republicans can maintain their pro-immigration roots, back some version of President Bush’s plan, and still aggressively attack the left’s lunatic ideas on immigration. For example, Republicans should oppose giving drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens (which is part of a liberal scheme to allow them to vote), granting in-state tuition for illegals, bilingual ballots, and bilingual education programs. Arnold Schwarzenegger got a massive political boost in his race for the California governorship by endorsing and later signing legislation to ban drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens.
A famous New Yorker cartoon shows two Indians peering through some bushes on a beach as the Mayflower comes to rest on the shore. One says to the other: “Looks like we’re going to need an immigration policy.” So do Republicans today. Most Republicans would love for the immigration issue to just go away. It won’t. The party needs a coherent, economically sensible, and, yes, compassionate program for those who want to become Americans. President Bush, for the most part, has one. If this year’s presidential election again turns into a national dead heat, the four western states where Latino votes are high or sharply rising–Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado–could well turn out to be the balance of power. Pro-immigration politics may once again hold the key to the future politics of our immigrant nation.
Stephen Moore is president of the Club for Growth.
