CIR Offers GOP Chance to Repair Image with Latino Voters

by Tyler Reny

A new post from Sylvia Manzano over at Latino Decisions highlights how much the GOP stands to gain, and lose, over immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. 

Over half of Latino voters (52%) have voted for GOP candidates in the past, and 43% are open to voting for the Republican Party if they take a leadership role in advancing CIR inclusive of a path to citizenship. There is an important caveat though — they must actually pass the bill in order to open a door with the Latino electorate. The Republican Party will not be rewarded simply for trying to pass a bill if their party also blocks it. We find the GOP will further damage their dismal standing with Latino voters if they block or otherwise thwart the effort that has enjoyed significant bi-partisan support among elected officials and the national electorate. Specifically, 41% of Latino voters will feel even less favorable toward the party if they take such actions.

Check out the entire post here.

Will Republicans Embrace Immigration Reform?

by Tyler Reny

As with public support for so many policies, language matters.  New polling from Brookings Institute confirms that how you phrase a pathway to citizenship proposal greatly increases or decreases support for the initiative, particularly among self-identified Republicans.  While the visual is pretty awful, as highlighted by Columbia Statistician Andrew Gelman’s comment, “My first step on immigration reform is to deport whoever made that graph,” the information is crucial to understanding how to frame issues to appeal to the public.  It seems that maybe, this time around, immigration may not be stymied by cries of “amnesty” from talk radio hosts despite all their attempts to sink the bill.

Conservative Elites Bolster Immigration Reform

by Tyler Reny

            Immigration reform may have been swallowed up over the last week by coverage of the sequester and D.C. dysfunction, but it has hardly disappeared.  In fact, the immigration reform bill is marching steadily forward.  Two weeks ago, the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came to an agreement on managing the entry of low-skilled workers into the U.S., clearing an important roadblock for reform.  Equally as important, Scott Walker, the firebrand conservative Governor of Wisconsin, came out in favor of comprehensive immigration reform.  Walker joined the growing ranks of conservative voices and Tea Party heroes calling for, or amenable towards, a path to citizenship: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity.  This growing chorus of consensus from conservative elites offers the best hope yet for eventual passage of a comprehensive reform bill.

            Political science research shows that the way that elected officials talk about immigrants and immigration matters, elite cues, help set the tone of the debate, are the most common source of news for the mass media, and have the potential to alter public opinion. In other words, the tacit support from “thought leaders” and political elites in the Republican Party has the potential to temper its nativist wing and open some space for wary congress members to vote for a comprehensive bill. 

            Danny Hayes, a political scientist at George Washington University, examined elite cues during the last immigration debate (2005-2007), and found that the chief voices of restrictive legislation were primarily Republican Congress members (amplified many times by certain influential media actors) and the chief sources of “welcoming frames” were immigrants themselves. 

            The 2013 debate has been different.  The Tea Party and conservative thought leaders mentioned above are joined by bi-partisan “gangs” in the Senate and the House, a strong DREAMer movement, and a new coalition of church leaders, law enforcement, and business interests, “Bibles, Badges, and Business,” all loudly trumpeting the positive immigrant and immigration frames.  Indeed, Micah Cohen, writing for FiveThirtyEight, has already found some evidence that opinion towards immigrants from GOP rank and file might be improving.

            This isn’t to say that the anti-immigrant frame has disappeared.  It hasn’t.  Border security and the rule of law are still dominant concerns of most GOP House members and constituents, many who consider a path to citizenship to be just as extreme as mass-deportation.

            And immense political hurdles still remain.  Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has promised to prioritize an immigration bill once the “octogang” has completed its work, a comprehensive bill faces major headwind in the GOP controlled House, where a majority of conservative members are from primarily white districts, the chair of the crucial Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), has received an A+ rating from a national leading anti-immigrant group, NumbersUSA, and leadership would be unlikely to bring a bill to the floor without a majority of support from the Republican caucus (though House Speaker Boehner has already violated the “Hastert Rule” several times this session).

            The hurdles for comprehensive immigration reform are numerous but support from some members of the conservative wing of the Republican Party is a promising sign of progress.  As long as Congress can pass a bill before August recess, where immigration reform could become death panels—as Congress members are already starting to see in angry town halls—the chance of reform is real. 

(update: Scott Walker has since “clarified” his support for comprehensive immigration reform, showing just how contentious support for such a bill can be.)

The Obama Immigration Bill Decoy

by Tyler Reny

After spending all last week writing about how Obama’s best strategy surrounding the immigration reform debate is to stay out of it all together, I was quite surprised this weekend when news came out that the administration’s reform plan was “leaked,” and published by USA Today.  The President has made reference, several times, to this plan, most notably in the comically naïve sentence from his Las Vegas immigration speech on January 29^th:

“And if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away.”

If only it were that easy.

But back to the plan.  To nobody’s surprise, many Republican leaders immediately balked at the proposal from the White House.  Rubio called the bill “half-baked and seriously flawed” and, if it were to make it to Congress, it would be “dead on arrival.” Sen. Rand Paul says that the Obama plan shows that he is not “serious” about passing immigration reform.  Rep. Paul Ryan posited that Obama is “looking for a partisan advantage and not a bipartisan solution.”

With all this backlash expected, why would the President’s advisors risk it?  Eugene Robinson, writing in today’s Washington Post, has a very compelling theory: Obama’s immigration plan is a decoy to draw fire from Republicans to provide them cover to support a less “liberal” bi-partisan proposal.  Even one with a path to citizenship in it!

“The problem is that Republicans have spent years demonizing undocumented immigrants as a way of appealing to xenophobic, jingoistic sentiment. So how can members of Congress switch from “these people are a plague” to “these people are welcome to stay” without facing the ire of the party’s activist base?

Enter the president’s draft proposal, which administration officials described as a “backup” plan that Obama may put forward if Congress is not able to reach agreement.

It’s really not much different from what Rubio’s group is talking about. But Republicans can slam Obama’s plan as some sort of Kenyan-socialist-inspired abdication of sovereignty. They can blast the provisions on border security as laughable. They can describe the absence of a real plan for reforming the legal immigration process as slapdash, or unserious, or whatever they want to call it.

Republicans in the Senate can line up instead behind a bill that Rubio’s Group of Eight eventually produces; even Paul, a tea party favorite, has indicated he could vote for reform as long as he had more than “a promise from President Obama” on border security. And if enough contrast can be drawn between a Senate proposal and Obama’s plan, perhaps even a significant number of House Republicans can be brought along — if not a majority, then enough to convince Speaker John Boehner to allow an up-or-down vote.”

UPDATE: Mark Krikorian, executive director of CIS, one of the leading anti-immigrant “think-tanks” in the country is arguing the same thing.

And now Benjy Sarlin from TPM has joined them.

Obama Barely Touched Immigration in His Speech, but That’s a Good Thing

Originally published in The Next America

by Tyler Reny

Given that immigration reform is shaping up to be one of the key legislative legacies of President Obama’s second term, many were surprised when the president devoted just five short paragraphs, 210 words (out of more than 6,400, or 3 percent), to the bill in his State of the Union address this week. Many immigration advocates took to Twitter to complain that he didn’t do more to “convince” the public and Congress to support a bill.

The problem with this complaint is twofold. First, the president has almost absolutely no ability to move public opinion. Second, the success of an immigration bill actually depends on the president’s ability to remove himself from the debate and disassociate his name from the bill.

First, let’s discuss the bully pulpit. Richard Neustadt, perhaps the preeminent scholar on the presidency, wrote in his 1960 book Presidential Power that “the power of the presidency is the power to persuade.”

Over the last 50 years, Neustadt’s words have become conventional wisdom among Americans, reporters, and especially among presidents themselves. Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, tried hard to rally the country behind his policy agenda from his bully pulpit. Bill Clinton made hundreds of appearances during his presidency to move public opinion, particularly on health care. George W. Bush embarked on a 60-day tour, “Conversations on Social Security,” to sell his Social Security privatization plan.

Obama, too, believes in the persuasive power of the presidency. When asked by Charlie Rose what he thought his biggest mistake was of his first term, he said he didn’t try hard enough to tell the right story to the American people.

Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom is wrong. In 1993, when George Edwards III, the distinguished political science professor at Texas A&M, began looking into the persuasive powers of the presidency, he found surprising evidence (or lack thereof). Contrary to common wisdom, he found a sitting president can help set an agenda but has very little ability to move public opinion.

Edwards first looked at Reagan (again, remember that Reagan has been compared to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of America’s greatest orators) and concluded that, contrary to widely held beliefs, Reagan was not a persuasive president.

Polling shows that public support for programs that the president opposed (welfare, urban problems, environmental protection, etc.) increased while the president was in office, and those that he supported (defense expenditures, aid to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua) decreased. In other words, “people were less persuaded by Reagan when he left office than they were when he took office.”

Reagan, it turns out, was not alone in his inability to move public opinion. After Clinton’s barnstorming tour, his popularity tanked, his health care bill died, and his party lost control of the House. Bush’s 60-day tour occurred simultaneously with plummeting support for the privatization of Social Security, forcing him to abandon the issue altogether. And the more Obama took to public forums to sell his health care bill, the more its popularity fell.

Tuesday’s State of the Union, considered by many to be the ultimate annual “persuasive” speech of any president’s tenure, was no different. A Gallup study of 30 years of polling data found that State of the Union addresses “rarely affect a president’s public standing in a meaningful way.”

George Edwards has convincingly shown that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The rhetorical presidency is an appealing and enduring theme in the collective American understanding of politics, but it is more fiction than fact. Immigration activists need not worry that the president didn’t push hard enough for immigration reform in his speech. He wouldn’t have gotten too far.

But the president is avoiding a full push on immigration reform for a more critical reason. With incipient bipartisan support for an immigration bill, the fastest way for the president to kill the bill is to have his name attached to it. As The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein put it, “by staying out, at least for now, the Obama administration is making it easier for Republicans to stay in.”

Frances Lee, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, suggests in her book Beyond Ideology “that presidential persuasion might actually have an anti-persuasive effect on the opposing member of Congress.”

This seems to have materialized in Republican obstruction to nearly every one of Obama’s priorities in his first term. But more importantly, in a divided government, the president’s aggressive leadership on a bill increases partisanship and decreases the probability that a bill will pass Congress.

Polling already shows that when Obama’s name is attached to a path to citizenship, support for it drops from 70 percent (when asked in the abstract if the proposal was favored) to 59 percent (when the pollster mentioned that Obama has proposed the measure). As The Post’s Chris Cillizza put it, “Republicans don’t mind the idea in theory but loathe it when attached to Obama.”

Obama’s strategy with immigration reform will reflect these political truths. As House Speaker John Boehnerpointed out to reporters, the president getting involved in the bill’s details will only be getting “in the way.”

If this bill becomes Obama’s immigration bill, it will scare off congressional Republicans—and without them, a deal is unlikely to happen.

So, no, the president didn’t spend much time discussing immigration reform, but for good reason. His involvement in the process would scare Republicans away. And he wouldn’t be able to move public opinion anyway. Immigration activists shouldn’t fret about his approach; it’s the best hope we have.

Tyler Reny has studied and lived in Barcelona, Spain, and Buenos Aires, Argentina; interned for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, in Washington; researched state welfare policy for the Rockefeller Institute in Albany; and now manages research and evaluation and crafts the social media presence for the New American Leaders Project. He graduated summa cum laude from Skidmore College and plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in political science.

(From:  http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/immigration/opinion-obama-barely-touched-immigration-in-his-speech-but-that-s-a-good-thing-20130214)

State of the Union tonight!

When President Obama delivers his fifth State of the Union address tonight, here at NALP we’ll be looking forward to:

 1) The four DREAMers who will be in attendance as guests of elected officials.  This day marks the first time undocumented immigrants will be present at the State of the Union Address, which we hope means that the President will outline definitive plans to overhaul the nation’s immigration policy.

 - Alan Aleman, a biological sciences student born in Mexico City will be the guest of First Lady Michelle Obama.  He was recently featured in the President’s immigration speech in Las Vegas last January.

 - Juliet Garibay, also originally from Mexico City, has a Masters in Nursing from Texas and is a guest of Representative Marc Veasy (D-TX).

 - Gabino Sanchez, who is married with two U.S. born children is a guest of Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL).

 - Amber Pinto, who has fought for the Virginia DREAM Act, hails from Bolivia and is currently a student in that state.  She arrives as a guest of Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). 

2) President Obama’s agenda to address immigration reform, specifically the need to overhaul a system that fails undocumented workers and foreign-born students whose encounter visa hurdles despite their stellar educations.

3) A frank discussion on improving the economy, which has shown to be the number one issues for all Americans, including Latinos, Asians and African Americans.

4) Senator Marco Rubio’s (D-TX) rebuttal speech, which will be conducted for the first time in both English and Spanish.  As a member of the Senate’s “Gang of 8,” the bipartisan group created to address immigration policy reform, we look forward to a roadmap which addresses the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, students, and STEM workers. 

Watch with us and check out our Facebook book page and our hashtag, #NALP, for updates!

Daily Immigration Link Roundup 2-6-13

By Tyler Reny

Yesterday was the first of several judicial committee hearings on immigration reform in the U.S. House and the questioning from members was very revealing of what to expect in the next few months. 

First, it is clear that Republicans agree on two areas: more visas for high-tech immigrants and stronger enforcement provisions.  Republicans are trying hard not to repeat the policy mistakes made in the 1986 (IRCA) law passed by President Reagan that led to nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today.

Second, the “path to citizenship” is going to be a very contentious issue in the Republican led House.  Both Bob Goodlatte, the Republican from Virginia and Chairman of the House Judiciary (which will deal with whatever legislation comes out of the House), and immigration and border security subcommittee chairman, Trey Gowdy, the Republican from South Carolina, are not sold on “amnesty.”  Both receive strong ratings from NumbersUSA, are both hawkish on immigration, and have both vocally opposed “amnesty” in all forms.  Several lawmakers, including Mr. Goodlatte and Mr. Gowdy, inquired about a middle ground between citizenship and deportation, signaling that the best we can hope for out of the House, is likely a path to temporary legalization, not citizenship.  It is not clear that the President or Senate Democrats would sign a bill that doesn’t include a full pathway to citizenship.  As some commentators have pointed out, Republicans may be looking to pacify APIA and Latino voters without creating 11 million new Democratic voters.

At the same time as the House Judiciary hearings on immigration reform, Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, gave a talk to the AEI where he spoke in favor of a path to legalization for DREAMers but stopped short of calling for a full path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants.  Keep in mind that any bill coming out of the House will need the support of the leadership: Reps. Cantor, Boehner, and McCarthy.

We look forward to following future hearings as the House Judiciary and other committees address wider ranging aspects of the bill.

IN OTHER NEWS

New poll: President Obama’s ratings on his handling of immigration are up to nearly 50% after hitting a low point of under 35% in 2010. 

Opinion: John Feehery argues that Republicans are doing themselves a serious disservice by explaining their support for a comprehensive reform in terms of politics (ie. “We are getting killed with the Hispanic Vote,”) rather than in terms of what is best for constituents or the country at large.

Labor Unions:  Unions throw their full political muscle and support behind immigration reform with hopes that new citizens could help grow their shrinking numbers.

History of Immigration Law in America: Check out this great WSJ interactive graphic on the history of immigration reform starting in 1882 and ending in 2012 with President Obama’s deferred action for childhood arrivals.

The Day in Immigration News - U.S. House Politics Edition

by Tyler Reny

The news cycle on immigration reform has slowed but will pick up later today as the House Judiciary Committee holds its first public hearing on immigration reform (it is live now on C-Span 3, you can watch it live here). So far, there has been a significant amount of criticism as much about who will be testifying as who will not be testifying. So far, it looks like the hearings will focus on well known GOP priorities of enforcement and HB-1 visas.

Let’s take this opportunity to focus in on the politics of immigration reform in the House.  It is widely expected that the U.S. House, controlled by the Republican Party, will be the biggest hurdle to passage of a bill that the President and Democrats support, for two, inter-related reasons:

1) While the prospects for immigration reform have improved after the 2012 elections (particularly because of Mitt Romney’s poor showing with Asian Americans and Latinos) these pressures for reform are only true for politicians seeking statewide or national offices.  The electoral incentives in the U.S. House, where members represent their distinct and varying district constituencies, are very different.

2) Why are these incentives important? Well, not only do most Republican House members come from very conservative districts but the also come from districts that are overwhelmingly (and increasingly) white.

Micah Cohen, over at FiveThirtyEight, did a great analysis of the situation.

In the 232 Congressional districts represented by Republicans, the average Hispanic share of each district is 11 percent (the 200 Congressional districts held by Democrats are, on average, 23 percent Hispanic). Just 40 of the 232 Republicans in the House come from districts that are more than 20 percent Hispanic, and just 16 from districts that are at least one-third Hispanic. At the other end of the spectrum, 142 districts represented by Republicans are less than 10 percent Hispanic.

In all, 84 percent of House Republicans represent districts that are 20 percent or less Hispanic.

The electoral incentives for reform, absent strong outside pressure from the “Badges, Bibles, and Business” coalition, are just not present in the overwhelming majority of Republican House districts.

This leaves passage of a bill in a tricky spot.  If a “comprehensive” bill is to be passed it might need to be done with widespread Democratic support and without the support of the majority party in the chamber and the House leadership (Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor, and Whip McCarthy) will need to be on board (this is not unheard of, but it is rare).

Perhaps the House hearings (occurring as I write this) will shed some light on the situation.  I urge you all to tune in.

(update: House Speaker Boehner declines to endorse a pathway to citizenship…this is clearly politicking but we must keep in mind that Boehner and the House leadership are key to the final bill)

Daily Immigration Link Roundup 2-4-13

We hope you had a nice Superbowl weekend.  We’re here once again to help summarize the weekend’s immigration news and highlight what to expect for the coming week.  Until the House plan or Senate legislative language is released, there isn’t much new to report.

THE POLITICS

The Senate

Whether he is just playing politics or not, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid predicts that Congress will pass and send to the President legislation to overhaul the broken U.S. immigration system.  While I think it is safe to say that legislation could make it through the Senate, passage through the House of a bill that the President would sign is far less assured, particularly if a pathway to citizenship provision in the bill rests on meeting an “amorphous standard like ‘operational control,’” before going into effect.

Ledyard King, writing for USA today, looks more closely at Sen. Marco Rubio and the “gamble” he is taking on immigration reform.

The House

The New York Times published yesterday a piece written by Albert R. Hunt for Bloomberg News that offers, in my opinion, the most comprehensive list of challenges that an immigration bill would face in Congress.  Take particular note of section 3 that highlights the House Republican leadership.  Not only would House Speaker Boehner need to pass the bill without the majority support of his party (which is likely what would need to happen), but he will need both Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Whip Kevin McCarthy to sign on.

On a more positive note, Ashley Parker looks at the bi-partisan House group that has been working behind the scenes to offer legislative language of their own for a bill.

The Tea Party

Cameron Joseph looks at how immigration reform could be driving a wedge through the Tea Party and splitting legislators on the issue, focusing specifically on Tea Party heroes and pro-immigration reform Congress members like Sens. Rubio and Flake and Reps.  Paul Ryan and Raul Labrador and contrasting them with nativist Reps. Lamar Smith and Steve King.

Opinion

Krugman, speaking on ABC’s “This Week” points out one of the largest difficulties of immigration reform, namely that the GOP’s “base is only white people.”

THE ECONOMICS

As pro-immigration groups rev up their PR machines, expect to see many studies and columns, like this one about Wisconsin and this one about the entire U.S., showing why immigrants are good for the economy.

PHILOSOPHY

Harry Bingswanger, a contributor to Forbes, asks some difficult questions about the principles of individual rights and open immigration but drawing a distinct line between entry, residency, and citizenship.

Daily Immigration Link Roundup 2-1-13

by Tyler Reny

Happy February 1^st everyone.  The immigration debate continues in Washington and in the media with attention starting to shift away from the pro-immigration reform supporters to the anti-immigrant camp as they rev up their PR machine and grassroots supporters. 

POLITICS

David Drucker and Kyle Trygstad outline why Marco Rubio, with his conservative star power, political credibility, and stunning communication skills, will be absolutely key in ensuring a healthy amount of support from House Republicans for any immigration reform package in Rubio Must Sell Immigration Changes to GOP, Grass Roots.

Ron Brownstein, in the National Journal’s On Immigration, What Obama Can Learn From Bush’s Failed Efforts, advances one of the best arguments for why the political tides are different for immigration reform this time around – specifically that Republican leaders are fully aware of the necessity of reform for future national electoral success and that President Obama is not going to be as deferential towards Speaker Boehner if he decides to bury a bill as President Bush was towards then Speaker Hastert when he refused to bring the immigration bill to the floor without support from a majority of the majority in 2006.

Adam Serwer writing for Mother Jones in Hardliners Killed Bush’s Immigration Reform.  Can They Stop Obama’s? asks the million-dollar question about immigration reform: will nativists be as powerful today as they were in 2006 and 2007? Pro-immigrant groups appear to be anticipating this and at least one SuperPAC is raising money to help protect on-the-fence Republicans from primary challenges should they throw their support behind the bill.

Fox Legal Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano offers the libertarian’s take on immigration in Reason magazine’s Immigration Is A Natural Right: Nativism is the arch-enemy of the freedom to travel, arguing that the right to travel is an individual person human right, long recognized under natural law as immune from governmental interference.

More bad news out of Arizona as State Rep. Steve Smith (R-Maricopa) introduces a bill that would require hospital staff to report patients that cannot provide proof that they are authorized to be in the country, writes Emily Deruy of ABC News in Arizona Bill Asks Hospitals To Check Immigration Status..  There are too many reasons to list why this is such a horrendous idea.

THE MEDIA

Howard Kurtz writing for CNN in Be a little skeptical on immigration reform examines the media’s role in the immigration debate, arguing that the enthusiasm for reform is causing media organization to overestimate the prospects of reform being passed.

THE SPECIFICS

Suzy Khimm writing for Wonkblog examines the length of the so-called “line” to get into the US in “How long is the immigration ‘line’? As long as 24 years.” When politicians say that immigrants who are here without documentation need to just “get in the back of the line,” they are being extremely misleading as there is no one line to get into the U.S. and wait times can vary from 0 to 24 years.

INTERNATIONAL EFFECTS

Olga Khazan and Nick Miroff turn their eyes south of the border in their Washington Post column Three Ways U.S. Immigration Reform Might Impact Mexico and find that immigration reform in the US could increase remittances to Mexico, could decrease the number of illegal border crossing attempts, and improve the flow of migrant labor.

OTHER

Nathan Heffel examines some cutting edge programs aimed to help close the Latino educational achievement gap in “Starting Early: Combating the Rising Latino Achievement Gap.” The trick: start early!