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Dear Readers:

As I’m writing this over the weekend in my home office, I have a television set going in the background with the volume down, but with yet another political ad running. This time its Mitt Romney pounding Rick Santorum. Actually, most of them are Mitt Romney negative ads. My state’s primary is coming up a week from Tuesday so after Michigan and Arizona have their say, the candidates will come south to my part of America.

Despite poll after poll showing immigration is not a major priority for most Americans (except Latinos), you wouldn’t know it from listening to the Republican candidates. They’ve brought immigration front and center and each tries to move further and further to the extreme on the issue of border security and the broader issue of illegal immigration. Mitt Romney, for example, has proudly touted the endorsement of Kris Kobach, one of the most anti-immigrant politicians in the country. He’s even taken him on as an advisor. Rick Santorum is as hardline on immigration as Romney including opposing the DREAM Act. His record in Congress was pretty dismal as well. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are somewhat less radical, but neither can hardly be called a moderate.

To their credit, all of the candidates support making the US immigration system more attractive and open to high skilled immigrants, but they usually spend little time talking about this and none have a record of really doing much to promote highly skilled immigration in the past. And the GOP in general has been hostile to moving skilled worker immigration bills in recent years. Congressmen Lamar Smith and Steve King and Senator Chuck Grassley are the most vocal Republicans in Congress on immigration issues and all have long records of opposing legal immigration programs.

Perhaps the candidates believe that GOP conservative (i.e. Tea Party) voters are making their decision on this issue. There is little evidence to support this proposition, but even if true, the risks for the general election are enormous. Most voters don’t consider immigration to be a major issue. But Latinos do. Immigration tends to be a filter issue. They may not make it their number one issue, but they won’t consider voting for a candidate with an anti-immigration record.

In the mean time, the President has been moving in the opposite direction. Much of his first three years in office have been spent cracking down on illegal immigration. The number of deportations has risen dramatically which has muted much of the anti-immigration movement’s rhetoric, but angered Hispanics. Since last summer, however, the tone has shifted dramatically. The President has rolled out a series of initiatives designed to make life better for non-criminal long time illegally present immigrants. These include a major prosecutorial discretion initiative and the announcement that immigrant bar waivers will soon be processed in the US. And the White House has also made a series of announcements designed to promote immigration for entrepreneurs and high-skilled immigrants.

The big questions are whether the Republican nominee will try and move back to the middle and whether the damage with Hispanic voters can be reversed and whether President Obama can meet or exceed the support he received from those voters in 2008.

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Readers are reminded that they are welcome to contact my law office if they would like to schedule a telephone or in person consultation with me or one of my colleagues. If you are interested, please call my office at 901-682-6455.

Regards,

Greg Siskind