News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. Dec. 15, 2014: While many immigrants and immigrant advocates are celebrating President Obama’s executive attempt to fix the country’s broken immigration laws, Republican lawmakers, including in states around the country, are moving to sue and block the plan from becoming a reality.
These are the same individuals who have refused to provide any solution to the problem but instead feel the need to keep the undocumented in a perpetual state of new ‘slavery.’
Last week, Representative Ted Yoho, a Republican in the largely white populated area of North Central Florida’s 3rd congressional district, introduced and got passed a resolution to halt the implementation of the president’s order.
This is a guy who did nothing to help solve the problem. Like Speaker John Boehner, they were content to sit on the sidelines for more than a year and refused to even bring the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill to a vote. Suddenly they can bring to a vote and get it passed a motion to block progress – with a vote on Thursday, Dec. 7th of 219 to 197.
But Yoho is not alone. Now 18 states, all with Republican governors or attorneys general, are suing the Obama administration over his attempt at action in a state of inaction. It is interesting to note that Florida’s AG Pam Bondi has also joined the Republican circus that has been triggered into action by President Obama.
How stupid can Bondi, Yoho and their cohorts be? Especially since Florida is a major swing state with a significant Hispanic voting population. Overall, Latinos make up 13.9 percent of the state’s more than 11.9 million active registered voters, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
Are Republicans in the Congress so blinded by their hatred of the President they are willing to even throw their chances in a 2016 presidential campaign away before it gets started?.
Here’s a reality check Republicans could do well to note before moving on such toothless actions: this year, 11 percent percent of all eligible voters are Hispanic, up from 10.1 percent in 2010 according to a study by Mark Hugo Lopez, Jens Manuel Krogstad, Eileen Patten and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera of the Pew Research Center.
Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center analysis of National Election Pool exit poll data as reported by NBC News found that the estimated black voter share was 12 percent in 2014, up from 11 percent in 2010, while the share of white voters declined from 79 percent in 2006 to 77 percent in 2010 and now to 75 percent, reflecting growing diversity of the nation’s population and electorate.
Let’s hope John Boehner finally wakes up out of his Tea Party induced stupor and becomes more progressive as 2016 approaches.
From all indication he is against the haste and hatred of the many conservatives in his party and now seems willing to work with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California, at least on getting a spending bill passed.
Now Boehner has a chance to make history and give his party some hope for 2016 – even if only a sliver.
Take Mitt Romney’s advice – “swallow hard” and pass legislation that will make “more transparent” the process by which undocumented immigrants can obtain residency.
After all, despite the ignorant commentators on the right and their even less educated callers and followers, Romney knows firsthand how much failure to address the issue can cost. He was the one who suffered the biggest loss in 2012 after his flip flopping on the issue to save face with right wingers cost him dearly.
Watch out Republicans – this may be your fate forever if you keep failing to understand ethnic change is here to stay!
The writer is CMO of Hard Beat Communications, which owns the brands News Americas Now, CaribPR Wire and Invest Caribbean Now.
