Ana Navarro: Some Conservatives Oppose Amnesty Because They're 'Racist'

So-called Republican Ana Navarro told a left-of-center outlet this week that she believes some people on the right oppose amnesty because they are racist. 

Navarro, the former “strategist” to liberal Republicans like John McCain and Jon Huntsman, has been elevating her profile among the mainstream press in the so-called “Acela corridor” by bashing conservatives, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Though there is often hardly a difference between the mainstream media and left-of-center outlets like Talking Points Memo, the Huffington Post, or BuzzFeed, Navarro now wants to be adored by them as well. There is no easier way to do that than to imply that those who are opposed to amnesty are racists, even though the primary argument against amnesty has been that it would lower the wages of American workers of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds–particularly those in black and Hispanic communities who have suffered in President Barack Obama’s economy. 

Navarro said that there are “certainly” some “racist people” on the right who oppose amnesty primarily because of race. She said that she wants to “think it’s a minority and that’s not what’s going to decide the immigration debate.”

Her comments, though, allow the mainstream and left-of-center press to use her to paint Republicans with a broad brush as “racists,” though Navarro has proudly proclaimed herself a “RINO”–a “Republican in Name Only”–and is more dismissive of Republicans not named Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio than she is of Democrats or the mainstream press. 

In an article that extensively quotes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who co-authored the Senate’s immigration bill with other senators such as John McCain (R-AZ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) and said the GOP is not generating “enough white guys” to stay in business, BuzzFeed also quotes an “anonymous Southern Republican lawmaker” who said that part of the opposition to amnesty is “racial.” 

“If you go to town halls people say things like, ‘These people have different cultural customs than we do.’ And that’s code for race,” the “Southern Republican lawmaker” told BuzzFeed.

They sound no different than permanent political class liberals, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who co-authored the Senate’s immigration bill and has said that conservatives “vehemently oppose” amnesty because America is becoming less white.

“Yes, things have changed. White Anglo-Saxon men are not exclusively running the country anymore,” he said Thursday. “President Obama lost the white male vote 35 to 62 percent yet he recaptured the presidency–by 5 million votes and a resounding electoral college margin.”

But Schumer, like BuzzFeed and the GOP establishment, conceded how powerful grassroots conservatives have been in fighting for American workers and stopping the various forms of amnesty that the bipartisan political elite have been trying to ram through Congress.

“In a pre-tea party world, the Senate immigration bill would have been welcomed by House Republicans,” he said. “However, the tea party rank and file know it’s a different America. It looks different; it prays different; it works different. This is unsettling and angering to some.”

BuzzFeed also marveled at the “bottom-up phenomenon” that has stopped amnesty in its tracks, conceding that “unlike abortion, Obamacare, the deficit, or federal spending, there’s no organized, well-funded opposition: There are no media campaigns of note or lobbying blitzes on Capitol Hill. In short, Republicans feel pressure without any formal outside group really applying it.”

Though hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to support amnesty, in addition to millions more worth of free press from all the mainstream and left-of-center outlets, this underfunded “bottom-up phenomenon” derailed what President Barack Obama said was his top goal of 2013 and has been the top objective of big-business Republicans for over a decade.