Late last week, President Trump met with a gaggle of senators to discuss DACA and the future of nearly 1.8 million illegal aliens living with protections granted to them by President Barack Obama’s executive order. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, has been pushing Trump to offer amnesty as both a solution to the immigration problem and a path to reelection victory. This would be part of Graham’s legacy that the aging senator has been trying to accomplish for more than a decade.
For years now, Graham has been working with Democrats such as Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin to create an amnesty proposal for millions of illegal aliens. Some in the administration who are close to the president are supportive of Graham’s plan. Despite Trump’s call to end DACA throughout his 2016 campaign, many in his White House believe offering a path to citizenship could help the president in 2020.
The idea that amnesty for illegal aliens will benefit Republicans at the ballot box has been wrong for years. When President Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 amnesty, the next GOP nominee, George H.W. Bush, received just 30% of the Hispanic vote in 1988. Bush later offered his own amnesty, expanded legal immigration, and created the diversity visa lottery — yet he won only 25% of the Latino vote in 1992. Pro-amnesty senators who later became Republican presidential nominees, Bob Dole and John McCain, received 21% and 31% of the Hispanic vote.
There’s never been proof that Hispanic voters are swayed heavily by the idea of amnesty. A 2020 Unidos US poll found that Latinos in critical states were more concerned about jobs, the economy, and healthcare than immigration. The poll found Hispanic voters were more likely to vote for a candidate if they supported increasing the minimum wage, free tuition for colleges, “Medicare for all,” and paid family sick leave. This was also true in the 2016 election, where immigration was the fourth-most important issue behind the economy, healthcare, and terrorism.
When President George W. Bush, who received 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, and Obama unveiled their reelection ads to Latino audiences, they didn’t focus on immigration. Bush’s Spanish language ads focused on protecting the social safety net, improving education, terrorism, and jobs. Obama’s first Spanish-language commercials during his reelection campaign focused on education.
Trump doesn’t need amnesty to increase his support among Hispanic voters because, according to both state and national polls, he’s already improved significantly from where he was four years ago. In Florida, 45% of Hispanics say they will vote for Trump on Election Day, up from 35% in 2016. Polls in Texas show that 41% of Hispanics favor Trump in 2020, up from 34% last time. Even in Trump’s home state of New York, his support among Latinos is at 32%, up nine points from four years prior.
This quest to provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens has more to do with Graham’s ambition than Trump’s reelection. This has been a passion project of the South Carolina senator for almost two decades. He was an early co-sponsor of Bush’s amnesty in 2003, the Gang of Eight bill in 2013, and campaigned for president on passing an amnesty deal in 2016.
Graham’s time chairing the Judiciary Committee is set to come to an end after this election cycle, where it will be led by an immigration-hawk or a Democrat if they take control of the upper chamber. With the understanding that this could be his last chance for some time, Graham is offering to sell the Trump administration on amnesty and promising them voters that will never materialize.
While Trump has little to gain from granting an amnesty, he has much to lose. Trump owes his victory in 2016 to his loyal base of supporters who rallied around him over the subject of immigration almost immediately after he came down that golden escalator. The reason the media was wrong every time they said he was finished was because his supporters were unshakably loyal to the only candidate who would crack down on both legal and illegal immigration. While many of those early supporters have been frustrated that he hasn’t been to do as much on immigration as they hoped, he is still better than the alternative — unless he passes this amnesty, granting millions of illegal aliens citizenship, and causing millions more to abandon him in November.
Ryan Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a writer based in New York.
