USA Today (Opinion)
By Alan Gomez
July 7, 2015
As
U.S. businesses, foreign governments and everyday Americans continue
distancing themselves from Donald Trump over his comments bashing
immigrants, I have something
else to tell him: Thank you.
By
branding immigrants from Mexico as rapists and criminals and using a
shooting in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant to call for a
giant wall along the Southwest
border, Trump has forced the other Republican candidates for president
to weigh in on the touchy issue of immigration. And that's left us with a
clearer picture of where all these candidates stand on the questions of
border security, the role local law enforcement
agencies should play in immigration enforcement and their general
attitude toward immigrants in this country.
On
one end of the spectrum, we have former Pennsylvania senator Rick
Santorum, who said he disagreed with Trump's "verbiage" but appreciated
the renewed focus on undocumented
immigrants who come to this country "with a bad intent." We saw Texas
Sen. Ted Cruz saying he would have worded things differently but agreed
with the call for tighter border security and ultimately said, "I salute
Donald Trump."
On the other end, we saw several GOP candidates rebuking Trump.
Former
Florida governor Jeb Bush, who has spent years advising his Republican
colleagues to ease their harsh tone against immigrants, called Trump's
comments "extraordinarily
ugly." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was part of a group that passed a
bill through the Senate that would have granted U.S. citizenship to
undocumented immigrants, said Trump's comments "are not just offensive
and inaccurate, but also divisive." Former Texas
governor Rick Perry tried to push Trump as far away as possible when he
said, "Donald Trump does not represent the Republican Party."
And
somewhere in the middle, we saw candidates trying to walk the fine line
between distancing themselves from Trump's comments but not him
personally. Former Arkansas
governor Mike Huckabee said he would "never besmirch all the people who
came here" but said one of his goals as president would be to secure
the border within one year of taking office. And while New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie called Trump's comments "inappropriate"
and said they don't belong in a presidential campaign, Christie said
the billionaire developer remained "a good friend."
The
buzz over Trump's comments eventually will fade, but the reactions from
all those candidates will become a basis for their immigration stances
as they dig into the
2016 race. Presidential races start so early these days that we're used
to seeing candidates on the campaign trail for almost two years. But
rarely do we see every major candidate articulate their beliefs on a
specific issue so early in the race.
Whatever comes of his polarizing bid for president, Trump has at least given us that.
The
question now becomes which strategy will prevail. Are Cruz and Santorum
in a better position to secure the GOP nomination because of their hard
stance on illegal immigration?
After all, the 2012 GOP primary turned into a race to see who could be
the harshest on undocumented immigrants, with Mitt Romney's policy to
make life so miserable for them that they would choose to self-deport
sealing his victory.
Or
does the more moderate stance taken by Bush, Rubio and Perry help show
Republican voters that such an approach would bolster the GOP's chances
of winning the general
election come November? Romney's immigration stance, while helpful to
securing the GOP nomination, left him winning just 27% of the
ever-growing Hispanic vote, which helped doom his run against President
Obama.
The
Republican Party issued a report after that 2012 election that
concluded that GOP candidates needed to improve their track record, and
their tone, on issues affecting
immigrants. As the report concluded: "If Hispanic Americans perceive
that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States
(i.e. self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next
sentence."
Now, thanks to Trump, we know who's following that playbook.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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