It was quickly overshadowed by the terrorist attacks in Paris, but a plan Ted Cruz unveiled last week was a sign that the 1990s Republican debate over legal immigration levels is back.
The latest sign, that is. Scott Walker implied he would view legal immigration through the prism of its impact on American workers, but was vague about what this meant about the number of newcomers admitted each year and was accused of talking out of both sides of his mouth. His campaign is already over.
Rick Santorum has expressly called for cutting legal immigration by 25 percent. But his 2016 presidential bid has so far gone nowhere, despite a narrow victory in the Iowa caucuses the last time around.
Perhaps this is evidence that cutting immigration is a losing issue for Republican presidential candidates, just as it failed to propel single-issue immigration restrictionist Tom Tancredo to the 2008 GOP nomination over Mr. Comprehensive Reform himself, John McCain.
But Cruz has an understanding of the Republican primary electorate, and the broader conservative mood, as deep as any popular radio show host’s. He knows his audience. And he has moved away from a sharp distinction between legal and illegal immigration, against his own inclinations.
Moreover, the Republican who has been at or near the top of the polls for months is Donald Trump. Trump’s actual immigration views are more ambigious than the conventional wisdom assumess. But supporters appear to be drawn to his hard-line rhetoric and his formal immigration plan, influenced by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. (and which Trump may or may not have actually read) calls for allowing “record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.”
Marco Rubio, formerly of the Gang of Eight, has disavowed the kind of comprehensive immigration reform he once embraced. In a recent Republican debate, he sounded almost restrictionist.
“Today, we have a legal immigration system for permanent residency that is largely based on whether or not you have a relative living here,” he said. “And that’s the way my parents came legally in 1956. But in 2015, we have a very different economy. Our legal immigration system from now on has to be merit-based.”
Rubio concluded, “It has to be based on what skills you have, what you can contribute economically, and most important of all, on whether or not you’re coming here to become an American, not just live in America, but be an American.”
Earlier on H-1B visas, Rubio said “we should put strict standards in place to ensure that they’re not being abused, like the prevailing wage requirement and like the advertising requirement.” If employers do evade these requirements in order to hire foreign workers over Americans, he argued “those companies should be permanently barred from ever using the program again.”
Cruz is clearly trying to one-up Rubio in the immigration debate, but his new restrictionism is more moderate than Santorum’s and more specific than Walker’s ever was. He doesn’t call for reductions in legal immigration. He just says there shouldn’t be increases while so many Americans are unemployed.
Even that’s too much for some critics. One headline described him as “turn[ing] on legal immigration”(the current levels at which Cruz would freeze immigration average around 1 million a year). But it does show how much the debate is starting to change again, at least among Republicans.
During George W. Bush’s administration, the Republican divide was over amnesty — whether defined as a path to citizenship or just a broad legalization program for current illegal immigrants. From McCain-Kennedy to the Gang of Eight, Senate Republicans often voted for such bills but as many as 75 percent of House Republicans opposed them.
When the Gang of Eight was being debated, a lot of attention was paid to what it would do to the status of illegal immigrants already in the country. Its increases in legal immigration received considerably less attention.
But many conservatives’ critique of lax immigration policies once extended to the legal variety too. Congressional Republicans, with the support Bill Clinton’s Barbara Jordan-headed immigration reform commission, contemplated capping immigration well below current levels, though like his fellow Texas Republican Cruz Texas Rep. Lamar Smith disputed the legislation would “slash legal immigration.”
A broad cross-section nevertheless pushed back. Economic conservatives and libertarians regarded the bill as too protectionist and anti-free market. Social conservatives disapproved of its impact on family reunification.
How are all of those conservative interests faring in immigrant-heavy blue states like California, restrictionists like to ask. These immigration hawks haven’t won the debate on the right. Lots of conservatives were annoyed by their mainly immigration-driven opposition to Paul Ryan for House speaker, which obviously failed even among the conservative Freedom Caucus. There remains concern that this position can’t win over growing demographic groups like Hispanics, even with Latino leadership.
It nevertheless resonates with an underrepresented constituency that wants immigration levels to remain the same, like Cruz, or go lower. Both options are more popular than increasing immigration, even in polls showing support for higher immigration at or near a 15-year peak. Ambitious Republican presidential candidates are paying attention.
