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Trump sure to lose Hispanic vote

4 min read

“It doesn’t matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think that we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies.”

The Republican’s Growth and Opportunity Project of December, 2012

Donald Trump: They Have To Go!

I have no doubt, that far from the glare of media scrutiny, the heads of the Republican Party freely discuss the problem they have on their hands – “The Donald.”

In 2012, right after Mitt Romney got walloped by Barack Obama, Republicans engaged in a little self-examination.

They released a 100 page report that outlined why Republicans have been steadily losing the votes of minorities and women.

“The Growth and Opportunity Project,” outlined how George W. Bush had gotten 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. But that Romney had only gotten 27 percent.

Of course, Bush had openly, and correctly said, “Family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande,” when he discussed the nation’s immigration policy, while Romney had another solution – “self-deportation.”

One fierce conservative, Dick Armey, seemed to understand that any political party that uses harsh rhetoric, and against one burgeoning voter block, is doing so at its own peril.

“You can’t call someone ugly and expect them to go to the prom with you. We’ve chased the Hispanic voter out of his natural home,” Armey was quoted as saying in the report.

Enter Donald Trump, the Republican’s current frontrunner for president.

Not only did he send-off shockwaves by implying that Mexico is sending “rapists” across the southern border of the United States, he’s going much, much further.

He released his own document; a six-page position paper, titled (what else) “Immigration Reform that Will Make America Great Again.”

Trump wants to deport every undocumented worker, along with their offspring that were born in the United States.

“They’ve got to go,” he told Meet the Press.

“We will work with them. They have to go. We either have a country, or we don’t have a country,” he said as if he could send them packing right after he said it.

Trump’s plan though, aside from crushing the Republican Party’s hopes of expanding its voter base, is fraught with problems.

First there’s the price tag.

Uprooting between 11 and 13 million people could cost as much as $285 billion over five years.

They’d all have to be arrested, detained, processed, and given transport back to the places from which they came.

Not only that, immigration policy allows every immigrant alleged to have come here illegally to be given hearings and appeals.

How long would that process take for 13 million people, when the most hearings ever conducted have been 250,000 in one year?

Then there’s the sticky business about Trump wanting to do away with birthright citizenship.

The U.S. Constitution is specific about the fact that anybody born within the confines of the United States is automatically granted citizenship.

Article 14, Section I, of the Constitution says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Trump, as it turns out, would like to deport U.S. citizens to, well, maybe the United States?

When pressed, and despite what the Constitution has said since right after the Civil War, Trump says, “I don’t think they have American citizenship.”

Trump’s penchant for questioning people’s citizenship didn’t start with his “Immigration Plan.”

You’ll remember, he tried, but failed (miserably), to uncover clear proof that President Obama was really born in Kenya.

But this time, despite the wishes of his own party, Trump is building a case against millions of people who’ve come into the country from Mexico.

He claims he’ll build a wall to prevent border crossing, and send people home once they’ve gotten here.

If Romney got 27 percent of the Hispanic vote, Trump appears to be trying to get .027 percent.

Or, as outlined in the Republican’s own document, “If Hispanics think that we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies.”

Edward A. Owens is a three time Emmy Award winner and 20 year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net

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