Herman Cain proposes an electrified fence to keep Mexicans south of the border.
Trump's immigrant problem extends to entire GOP
Sal Rodriguez
Orange County Register
If one has heard anything about immigration in the past few decades, the narrative of the job-stealing, welfare-cheating criminal illegal alien is nothing new. Unemployment problems, fears over national security, crime increases, the soaring cost of the welfare state -- it all has been blamed on undocumented immigrants.
So when Donald Trump disparaged undocumented immigrants from Mexico, his remarks weren’t all too surprising and were at most only slightly more hyperbolic than what has been said by many more before him.
“When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best,” Trump said when announcing his presidential campaign. “They are not sending you. They are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs and they are bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”
While these remarks have spurred some businesses and fellow Republicans to separate themselves from Trump, absurd statements about Mexican immigrants have been a persistent component of immigration debates for some time.
In 2011, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, said of undocumented immigrants that he would do “anything short of shooting them” to stop them from “taking jobs from American citizens.”
In 2013, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, in speaking against the DREAM Act, claimed that, for every valedictorian Dreamer, "there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, seemingly has built his national reputation on ludicrous assertions about immigrants, including the idea that terrorists “are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanics.”
Despite the actual evidence, the American public in many ways has internalized these narratives.
A Rasmussen poll released July 8 indicated that most Americans believed illegal immigration increases serious crime in the United States, including 76 percent of Republicans.
This, even though crime rates have been plummeting for decades nationwide as undocumented immigrants have come to the country by the millions.
On broader issues like legal status, Republicans consistently are less supportive than the general public of conferring legal status on undocumented immigrants .
However, with the increased prominence of the Hispanic vote, some Republicans seem more aware that bashing immigrants doesn’t bode well for the party’s long-term prospects.
In response to Trump’s remarks, GOP candidates have had a range of responses.
At a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, Sen. Ted Cruz simply characterized as “colorful” Trump’s statements and said, “I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration.” In a similar vein, former Sen. Rick Santorum on Hardball denounced the “speech police” for criticizing Trump.
Ben Carson more explicitly has jumped to Trump’s defense, invoking the recent murder in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant.
In contrast, former Gov. Jeb Bush denounced what Trump has said as “extraordinarily ugly,” a sentiment echoed by former Gov. Rick Perry, who condemned the “disrespectful language.”
While rebukes to Trump are a welcomed sign of self awareness, the GOPs history of xenophobic statements about undocumented immigrants, sometimes cloaked in legalistic concerns about violations of immigration laws, probably will continue to haunt presidential hopefuls for some time.
As for Trump, in a recent statement, San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos probably put it best, “Rather than painting a broad brushstroke over immigration, perhaps Mr. Trump should stick to what he knows best: building casinos and creating drama on television shows.”
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