Hispanic Voters

With the recent defeat in Congress of the Immigration Reform Bill, how will the Hispanic voters react? The Hispanic population has traditionally supported Democrats over Republicans and they represent the largest group of illegal aliens. George Bush did receive about 40% of this minority in 2004, but the 2006 mid-term elections showed only 25% of the 8.6 Million Hispanic Eligible Voters in the Republican Column.

According to several reports since the Immigration Bill was defeated, speculation was high that the Republicans would take a bigger hit from the Hispanic Voters than the Democrats. In fact the most often repeated opinion was that the Democrats would make large gains among the Hispanic population.

Now enter the Latest Rasmussen Report which shows the Republicans actually gained numbers of people willing to identify themselves as Republican. The Democrats still hold a small lead among those who chose to identify a Party Affiliation. Specifically the Survey says the following about Party gains and loses in the wake of the Immigration Bill defeat.

"The immigration debate appears to have helped the Republican Party while hurting the President and other supporters of the “comprehensive” reform legislation. Prior to the debate, 47% of voters trusted Democrats more on the immigration issue. Following the failure of the Senate bill, just 39% trust the Democrats more on the issue. In fact, among unaffiliated voters, Republicans are now trusted more than the Democrats on immigration. The only other issue where the GOP can make that claim is national security."

This same report also notes that these Republican gains were made at a time when the President is at his lowest approval rating.

To me this is not surprising. All American Citizens, Naturalized or Native Born, realize that Citizenship is a privilege not a right. Other than Native Americans, All American Citizens or their ancestors accepted the responsibility of becoming citizens of the USA. I do not believe the Hispanics who came here legally and became citizens are any less appreciative of the privilege.

In other words, it is not a race issue, but rather a matter of responsibility. As I have written before, this bill was just too badly written and bloated to have a chance of being implemented. We need better written Legislation to deal with the serious Immigration Issue. Passage of several smaller bills, each addressing a specific part of the Immigration Problem, is a much better idea than one all comprehensive bill. Former Delaware Governor Pete Du Pont has expressed his thoughts about immigration legislation in his article - Security First. As Governor Du Pont suggests, the first step must be the securing of the borders. I would add both of them.

There is another issue here that is bothering me. Who is the most affected, and therefore most troubled by the lack of "Amnesty" which the failed bill would have provided? Other than some Liberals, some unethical employers and a few others who want to take advantage of illegal aliens, is it not the Illegal Immigrants themselves? Why? Because they have the most to gain. They broke the law to come here, and while many are otherwise law abiding people, they are not voters. Or at least they should not be.

Clearly we need to secure the borders first and at the same time enforce the current laws to deal with the Immigration Problem. It is an issue that will, in all probability, not be addressed again until after the next Presidential Election in 2008. It should be now, and we also need to insure that only Legal Citizens are Voting in our Elections.

Are illegal aliens registered and voting? The answer is YES. Texas alone has found over 300 on the Texas Registered Voter Rolls. How do I know? They were caught when they were called for Jury Duty and said so themselves. The Jury Pool comes form the Registered Voters Rolls!