Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a prominent voice on the anti-immigrant Right, argued yesterday that the Republican Party shouldn’t bother courting Hispanic voters because their “illegitimate” children, “high rates of welfare use,” and opposition to “reducing the size of government” make them an “an overwhelmingly Democratic voter group.”
Krikorian is one of the most prominent figures in the effort to stop comprehensive immigration reform. He was invited to be a GOP witness at a Senate hearing on immigration reform earlier this month, where he said the bill in question could be called “No Illegal Alien Left Behind.”
Speaking with New Orleans radio talk show host Garland Robinette yesterday, Krikorian dismissed the idea that the Republican Party needs to work to attract Latino voters, including through efforts at immigration reform. The Republican share of Latino voters “is never going to be very big,” he said. “Generally speaking, Hispanic voters are Democrats, and so the idea of importing more of them as a solution to the Republican Party’s problems is kind of silly.”
Robinette: I’ve been told by pretty conservative friends that, well, you don’t have to worry about the president changing it or Congress changing it because the Republicans are going to need this Hispanic vote even more than the Democrats do. Is that a valid argument, that if passed, it will survive the ten years?
Krikorian: No, I mean, well, in a sense, if, for those people who think that chasing after the Hispanic vote is an important goal for the Republicans, that’s actually an argument for saying that various requirements in the bill will not survive ten years, that they’ll start watering them down as soon as the ink is dry.
But I would even challenge the premise. I mean, Republicans obviously need to go after any voter group, and there’s a significant minority of Hispanic Americans who will vote Republican, and that number can be increased and Republicans should work on increasing it. But it’s never going to be very big. Hispanics as a whole are the biggest supporters of Obamacare, are big supporters of gun control, are opposed to reducing the size of government. Native-born Hispanic Americans, who make up most Hispanic voters, have a majority of the children that are born to them are illegitimate, very high rates of welfare use. So this is a description of an overwhelmingly Democratic voter group. Not all of them, obviously, because there’s a big group and there’s a lot of differences among them. But generally speaking, Hispanic voters are Democrats, and so the idea of importing more of them as a solution to the Republican Party’s problems is kind of silly.
