During a symposium at the Newseum on conservative engagement with Hispanic media outlets, [Sen. Rand] Paul said Republicans have plenty of ideas that appeal to Latinos, but acknowledged, “We got [sic] to get beyond deportation to get to the rest of the issues.” – The Daily Caller 4/01/14
Fact Check: It is difficult to see how “get beyond deportation” can mean anything other than not carrying out deportations. Not that this is happening very much anyway. Thanks to President Obama’s systematic sabotage of immigration law enforcement, less than one percent of illegal aliens in the interior are now being deported.
Without the penalty of deportation, and the significant possibility that it can happen, we might as well not have immigration laws. Perhaps this is what Sen. Paul believes, given that he subscribes to the libertarian ideology which commonly denies the reality of nationhood and proposes to open the American labor market to the entire world. Unscrupulous business interests find this ideology most convenient as a means to justify their agenda of mass immigration to drive wages in the U.S. as low as possible.
In any case, Paul says Republicans should drop deportation as an issue is because it will alienate Hispanics from the Republican Party. In point of fact, however, that’s not the main reason most Hispanics don’t vote for the GOP. As shown by statistics from the Pew Hispanic center, foreign-born and native-born Hispanics tend to me more liberal on issues related to government assistance than most Americans. This, plus the fact that on average they have lower incomes, inclines them to be a Democratic constituency.
The only hope Republicans have for reaching significantly more Hispanics is for them to move up the economic ladder. But that’s not going to happen as long as mass immigration from Latin America continues to depress wages for low-income Hispanics and other low-income Americans.
Paul says Hispanics think Republicans lack “empathy” for them. But the party would show true empathy, and probably get votes, if it forthrightly told Hispanics that their economic prospects would improve with less immigration.
While offering sympathy for Hispanics, Sen. Paul seems to have little for his party’s conservative base of voters who want immigration law enforced and mass immigration curtailed. It doesn’t seem to be an issue with him that loss of support from this group could more than offset any gains made from pandering to Hispanics who oppose immigration law enforcement.
The cheap labor elites of the GOP often use the “Hispanic vote” argument to advance their agenda. But given that this agenda ultimately will strengthen the Democrats, it truly appears that these elites don’t care about the long-term future of their party—or, for that matter, what’s best for their country. Their goal, one might reasonably conclude, is profit-making in the short-term with no regard for the future. Is Rand Paul on their team? He certainly gives that impression.