Immigration started out as one of the debate’s hottest topics, mirrored by protestors around UH. | Justin Cross/The Cougar
GOOGLE SPIN ROOM — The debate took off quickly with the topic of immigration. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took turns debating Donald Trump over hiring undocumented and foreign workers over U.S. citizens.
“My mom was a maid at a hotel, and instead of hiring an American like her, you’ve hired people around the world instead,” Rubio said.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich took a different route and talked about his plan for a legal pathway, without a way for citizenship.
“I don’t think we’re going to tear families apart… it doesn’t reflect America,” Kasich said.
Border talks came into play next with Donald Trump saying the wall with Mexico “just got 10 feet taller,” as a result of former Mexican president Vicente Fox’s interview published early Thursday.
“And he’ll probably hire illegal workers,” Rubio said.
Telemundo’s Maria Celeste asked Cruz and Rubio why they appeal to the average Republican instead of opening themselves up to Hispanic votes.
“When I ran for Senate, I earned 40 percent of the Hispanic vote,” Cruz said. “If you look at values in the Hispanic community — faith, family, patriotism…I campaigned on the same conservative principles.”
When directly asked about immigration, Kasich said he wants economic growth before taking on immigration.
“The promise of America is that our system, when we follow the right formula, will be the rising tide of everyone,” Kasich said.
A Telemundo poll found that three of four Hispanic voters have negative perceptions of Trump.
“I don’t believe anything Telemundo says,” Trump said. “I’ve won many of the polls with Hispanics. I’m bringing a lot of people who are Democrats (or) Independents… and building a much bigger, much stronger Republican party.”
People like Trump because he opened the Overton window and asked “What about Immigration?” The Overton window is what is permissible to discuss in the public forum.
Prior to Trump the debate chilling ‘racist’ signal was enough to render our
public forum conversations meaningless as we danced around the elephant
in the room.
People saw what happened in 1986 with Simpson-Mazzoli. A ‘reasonable’ immigration reform law amnestied 2.6 million and then attracted 11 million more. Being ‘reasonable’ was not going to work. People saw that any ‘reasonable’ solution would be ignored by the twin immigration engines of GOP cheap labor and DEM vote farmers.
Who loses? The ‘reasonable people’ who put forward a solution and wait patiently for results that never came in the 1986 ‘reform.’
Now we have 11 million illegals(and Bear Stearns said 20 million in an
earlier report so it is probably 30 million by now) and the ‘reasonable
people are still waiting.
Simpson-Mazzoli simply was a lure to attract more immigrants for both the GOP business interests(thus undercutting the American worker) and the DEM vote gatherers.