OPINION:
How many of last year’s more than 2 million illegal immigrants have been resettled at taxpayers’ expense far from the southern border may never be known. The Biden open-borders policy degrades our sovereignty and our system of laws. Fighting against it must be an unambiguous political objective.
However, it’s time to accept that those who came, save a few, will likely stay. Mass deportations have never been a viable answer to the immigration crisis.
That means those immigrants and their progeny will become voters at some future point, adding to the increasingly powerful Hispanic American voter demographic. Republicans are right to rail against illegal immigration. Still, they also must see the enormous opportunity to build a relationship with these immigrants through robust outreach to the broader Hispanic community.
Hispanics are the largest potential growth demographic for Republicans. A strong commitment to them, including new arrivals not yet eligible to vote, will ensure the left’s advance is blunted.
In the last century, waves of Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants were actively courted by Democrat-aligned unions and liberal political groups from the moment they reached our shores, promising jobs that would feed their families. People who came with nothing moved from the racial ghettos of the cities to homeownership and the middle class in one generation.
Those moves were fueled by what today is distinctly Republican values: hard work, strong families, thriving faith communities and education that provide a firm foundation for success.
But today’s left-wing Democrats have a problem. They’re not offering empowerment. They’re offering more government programs, welfare and racial division inspired by political calculus. They’ve also abandoned law enforcement and tough-on-crime policies that keep particularly urban Hispanic communities safe.
This gives Republicans a golden opportunity to target and organize Hispanic communities aggressively. The erosion of Hispanic support for Democrats is so alarming to party leaders that it prompted a warning from the majority leader of the New York City Council during last December’s debate on noncitizen voting.
Council Member Laurie Cumbo hysterically stated, “We saw in the presidential election that many other ethnic groups voted Republican, jeopardizing the entire future of this country by voting Republican.”
There was a time when grabbing a majority of the Hispanic vote for Republicans was perceived as out of reach. Democrats and the media effectively painted Republicans as the party of the rich, the white suburbanite and the Protestant.
Many Republican strategists for decades ignored both Blacks and Hispanics, figuring them unattainable. Democrats had better organized those communities and made constant efforts to demonstrate that they were focused on their needs, at least in thin ways.
Today though, Republicans are striking strong populist tones attracting more blue-collar voters. The fastest-growing group of evangelical protestants in America is Hispanics.
What worked for both former Presidents George W. Bush — who received more than 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004 — and Donald Trump — who increased his own percentage of the vote by 16 points over 2016, nearly hitting the 40% mark — was a message of empowerment. For Mr. Bush, it was a combination of tax cuts and education reform. For Mr. Trump, tax cuts created a booming economy that opened doors for economic advancement. It can work again.
With the percentage of Hispanic voters poised to outpace Blacks in the coming years, Democrats are looking for a new minority bloc to give them an edge. The assumption that all Hispanics would naturally vote for Democrats who dole out the welfare checks is as racist and offensive now as it has been for the Black community for the last half-century. Still, they think this scheme is a home run.
The polling tells a different story. A recent survey by The Wall Street Journal showed an even split between the parties among Hispanics, with 22% undecided.
For Republicans, Hispanics becoming swing voters means they need to show up more, spend more resources on reaching Hispanic voters, continually organize in Hispanic neighborhoods, establish Hispanic Republican social clubs, recruit Hispanic candidates and give Hispanic Republicans at all levels of the system higher-profile roles in the party.
Republicans need to authentically engage Hispanics in the process of creating policy positions that speak to their desire for real empowerment. Democrats can’t do that.
This is a moral and political imperative to protect the future of the Republican Party and American greatness. America’s Hispanic community is poised to save the nation from the socialism many of them fled. Republicans should open their hearts and minds and let them do it.
• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax Television an author and former Bush administration official.
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