Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Immigration issue is dividing Republican Party

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The Hispanic outcry against the House immigration reform bill caught Washington Republicans off guard, Nevada Rep. Jon Porter's chief of staff said Friday.

"I don't think anyone at the time anticipated that either side would have necessarily tried to bring this to the emotional level that it has taken," Mike Hesse said. "This is like a pressure cooker that's been building up for years."

The comment illustrates that immigration has become a divisive issue for Republicans in Nevada and nationwide, causing a rift perhaps unparalleled since anti-abortion forces won the abortion wars more than two decades ago and came to dominate the party.

This week, President Bush tried to stake out a "rational middle ground" in the immigration debate, calling for stronger border control and measures to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants, while also creating a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for people in the United States illegally.

Many House Republicans, including some in the leadership, balked at Bush's plan. They continue to insist on the enforcement-only approach of the House legislation. That approach includes no provision for legalizing the 11 million or 12 million people in the United States illegally.

Nevada's two House Republicans, Porter and Rep. Jim Gibbons, say they support the president's approach, although they voted last year for the House bill that mobilized Hispanics nationwide.

Porter and Gibbons said they had supported a broader approach, including a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship, even as they voted for the House bill. They said they did so after being told by the office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that after their chamber passed its enforcement-only legislation, it would compromise with the Senate.

"Sometimes we create laws in a knee-jerk reaction and have to go and iron out the wrinkles," Gibbons said.

Porter said Republicans deserve credit for bringing to the fore an issue that has eluded past administrations for two decades.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Las Vegas, said Friday that her colleagues had shown a lack of leadership on the issue.

"I think the people of the United States are entitled to a Congress that can walk and chew gum at the same time," Berkley said. "If they were uncomfortable with this legislation, and the fact that it was only punitive, they should have objected to their Republican leadership and it wouldn't have gotten on the floor for a vote.''

Gibbons and Porter are not alone in trying to reconcile their positions. Their party is in a tough spot as well.

"For the Republicans, their base is split," said David Lublin, a political scientist at American University. "Businesspeople think it's key to the growth of the country, while the conservative base thinks it's a failure of will. They're thinking, 'We've empowered the president and Congress, and they've done nothing.' "

This wedge between the party's white, working-class base - which favors an enforcement-only approach - and Hispanics and the businesses that employ them , couldn't come at a worse time for the GOP.

A combination of high gasoline prices, the war in Iraq, ethics scandals and Bush's low approval ratings threatens Republican control of the House and possibly the Senate in the November elections.

"It's all about how high the tide will be to wash out the incumbents," said Ruy Teixeira, a pollster who wrote "The Emerging Democratic Majority," which posited, among other things, that the country's rapidly growing Hispanic population would lead to a long-term Democratic advantage.

The Hispanic protests across the country this spring demonstrated that many immigrants see the issue in personal terms . That personal connection could translate into votes if Hispanics remain mobilized through the summer and fall.

"The immigration issue isn't an academic issue for many Latinos," said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute and a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California. "It's friends. It's relatives. It's an everyday issue. It's not Iraq. It's not abstract."

"It's hard to come up with a position that's anti-immigration without seeming anti-Latino," Lublin said.

Pachon pointed out that 80 percent of Hispanics under the age of 18 are native-born citizens. That means in a decade or two, they'll all be voting age, and some of their first memories may be the pro-immigration rallies of their youth.

A major concern of Republicans in the November elections is that polls show that a large share of their base might stay home rather than vote if they think their leaders are not cracking down on illegal immigration with enough force.

In Nevada, Republican no-shows on election day pose a risk for Porter, facing re-election against well-funded challenger Tessa Hafen, and for Rep. Jim Gibbons, who's running for governor.

Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington said that fear of low Republican turnout in Nevada has the party hoping that the proposed ballot initiative to limit state and local taxes and spending will gain enough signatures to be placed before voters. If it does, it might bring more Republicans to the polls, Duffy said.

Immigration itself could motivate Republican voters if they saw it as an issue they could influence on election day, Duffy said.

Immigration also poses a challenge for Democrats.

Duffy noted that Hispanics living in the United States legally could resent Democratic efforts to clear the way for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship.

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