The Republican establishment is already telling the mainstream press that GOP leaders must go on offense and pass comprehensive amnesty legislation if Republicans regain control of Congress.
But CNN does not understand that Republicans may again ignore the advice of their leaders, Wall Street donors, and establishment on comprehensive amnesty legislation, because actual Republican voters do not want it.
Republican voters forced lawmakers to pass a tough border bill in the House that would prevent President Barack Obama from enacting more temporary amnesty. Republican candidates never mention or advertise their support for amnesty legislation during primary campaigns. Sen. Lamar Alexander, for instance, spent a year convincing Tennessee voters that he was “against amnesty.” Only after he won his nomination with the lowest percentage ever for a Tennessee incumbent did Alexander embrace amnesty again.
Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), top donors and former Bush administration officials have been pushing for comprehensive amnesty legislation, arguing, without proof, that it would help the party make inroads with Hispanics. But a recent Univision poll of Latinos found that amnesty legislation was nowhere near the top priority among Hispanics.
As Breitbart News reported, “when registered Latino voters were asked to name their most important issues, the results, in order, were: education (21%), jobs (16%), government spending and the deficit (15%), social security (13%), “how what they do will affect my wallet” (10%), health care (9%), immigration (8%), and crime and personal safety (5%).”
Latinos’ top complaint with Republicans was not that the party was against massive amnesty. It was that Republicans “care mostly about corporations and big business” (17%). Other concerns, in order, were that Republicans: care only for themselves (17%), favor the rich (14%), are against immigration reform (10%), don’t stand up strongly for their beliefs (7%), “don’t understand people like me” (6%), and favoring white people not minorities (5%).
Hispanics, like blue-collar American workers, hate the Republican party when it stands for “corporations and big business” instead of free markets. And there is not an issue that unites the bipartisan permanent political class more than massive amnesty, which would provide Democrats with new voters and big-business elites with cheaper labor. High-tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg, employing mercenary staffers from both sides of the permanent political class aisle, have worked with the Chamber of Commerce to pour in millions of dollars to push amnesty.
And as CNN reported, some of the biggest cheerleaders for amnesty have been Republicans in the permanent political class. Carlos Gutierrez, the former commerce secretary for George W. Bush, told CNN he wanted Republicans to go on offense on amnesty if the GOP takes back the Senate and push a bill that would provide a “path to legal status” for all of the country’s illegal immigrants. CNN, though, did not disclose that Gutierrez co-founded a super PAC to support candidates who back amnesty legislation.
“Why are Republicans continuing to shoot themselves in the foot?” he asked the outlet.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), who begged Republicans to push his amnesty bill even after Boehner told Obama that he would not bring up a bill, told CNN that Republicans are giving Democrats “another bullet point in their narrative” against Republicans. Diaz-Balart has been more than willing to help Democrats slam his party. Establishment consultant Henry Barbour, who was associated with Thad Cochran’s race-baiting in Mississippi, also expressed support for comprehensive amnesty legislation to CNN.
CNN was happy to cite the Wall Street Journal, which has always been eager to slam conservatives. Recently, the pro-amnesty outlet said that Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) belonged to the “deportation caucus” for wanting to prevent Obama from enacting more lawless executive action. Cruz and Sessions also happened to agree with a majority of Americans in numerous national polls who want illegal immigrant juveniles, nearly 90% of whom are teenagers, to be sent back as quickly as possible.
Republicans in both chambers have indicated that they may push for a comprehensive bill if the GOP controls Congress ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Boehner reportedly told Obama that there was a good chance of getting an amnesty bill in the next Congress, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who was the face of the Senate’s Gang of Eight bill, has said Republicans would “absolutely” try to pass another comprehensive bill if they take back the Senate.
But according to the Congressional Budget Office, such legislation would lower the wages of American workers of all backgrounds. That would make Republicans seem more like the party that “does not care about people like me” to American workers without guaranteeing that Hispanics would start lining up to be Republicans in droves. But Republican leaders seem more concerned about the interests of their donor class than of voters.