Republicans Piss Away Hispanic vote.

Truth be told, I tend toward the restrictive side to immigration, but it's not over concern about Hispanics.

I'm more concerned with potentially importing anti-Semitic Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, or Estonian skinheads than I am about someone from Latin America, and I'm not too concerned about them.

I'm not that concerned about the above either. When people come to America, they tend to leave a lot of that behind, which is a good thing.

I'm concerned about immigration being used to depress wages, and it is used that way with H1b and L-1 visas, and the repeated suggestions about slave labor guest workers, who would constitute a permanent underclass.

I also agree with Paul Krugman's assessment that a large underclass creates a breeding ground for right wing politics.

That being said, there are clearly is both a right wing and a left wing position on expanded immigration (cheap labor and empatyh respectively) and on more restricted immigration (racism and wages respectively).

Personally, I favor a bounty program for illegals who rat out employers.

That being said, the Republican anti-immigration side is clearly racist, and it shows to the newly minted Americans.

New mood from new citizens

Latino immigrants in South Florida who have traditionally registered with the GOP have felt alienated by the party, critics say.
By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
June 16, 2007

MIAMI BEACH — As a Cuban who fled Fidel Castro's communist rule for a new life in the U.S., Julio Izquierdo would seem a natural Republican voter — a sure bet to adopt the same political lineage that has long guided most of his countrymen who resettled in South Florida.

But moments after taking his oath this week to become a U.S. citizen and registering to vote, the grocery store employee said he felt no such allegiances.

"I don't know whether Bush is a Democrat or a Republican, but whatever he is, I'm voting the other way," Izquierdo, 20, said Thursday as he waited for a taxi after a mass naturalization ceremony at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Izquierdo said he did not like President Bush's handling of the Iraq war and was miffed at politicians, most of them Republican, who seem to dislike immigrants.

That sentiment, expressed by several of the 6,000 new citizens who took their oaths Thursday in group ceremonies that take place regularly in immigrant-heavy cities nationwide, underscored the troubled environment facing the GOP in the buildup to next year's presidential election.

Surveys show that among Latino voters — a bloc Bush had hoped to woo into the Republican camp — negative views about the party are growing amid a bitter debate over immigration policy.

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