Beware of the GOP's Latino Spinners

Look for them on your television, hear them on your radio, read them in the blogs — and beware of the phony indignation they will try to sell you. In English or Spanish, their cheap act will be easily detectable.

When Latinos who claim to speak for the Republican Party pretend to be angry because the Democrats didn't get amnesty for undocumented immigrants, remember that they belong to the party that has turned amnesty into a four-letter word.

If they try to crucify President Barack Obama for failing to keep his promise to pass immigration reform, remember that they belong to the party that created all the obstacles to prevent this from happening.

When the GOP's Latino spinners pretend to be offended by the number of illegal immigrants deported under the Obama administration, remember that the increased deportations were an ill-advised effort to get some Republicans to agree to go along with immigration reform.

Obama's mistake was believing that by feeding red meat to the GOP wolfs, increasing deportations and continuing to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, he could then convince some Republicans to find some compassion for the rest of the undocumented immigrants living here. It was extremely naive, I know, and it took the president too long to tell the feds ease up on deportations, as he now has.

But to suggest that we should vote for the wolfs over those who mistakenly fed them, that takes a lot of gull. And that's just what some GOP Latino spinners intend to do when they ask Latinos to vote for Republicans in 2012. With a straight face!

From now until the 2012 presidential election, their agenda is to pretend that Obama's failure to act on behalf of immigrants is worse than the atrocities committed against immigrants by Republicans. They'll insist that Latino voters should look at Obama's deportations, but readily dismiss all the Draconian, immigrant-bashing GOP proposals we have seen in recent years.

To call them hypocrites, would be an understatement, especially because their ultimate goal is so Machiavellian. Frankly, they don't care if Latino voters reject Republicans, as long as they also reject Obama.

Since they know most Latinos are not going to vote for Republicans — they never have — and that a high Latino voter turnout will help Obama win re-election, their objective is to get Latinos to stay home on Election Day.

Why they would engage in efforts to disempower their own people is incomprehensible.

When the GOP's Latino spinners express indignation with Obama's failures on immigration, let's hope that someone asks them why they are not offended by GOP politicians who want to electrify border fences and deny citizenship to U.S. born children. Let's hope that someone calls their bluffs and exposes their hypocrisy.

In this column, I, too, have been harshly critical of the president's failure to reform immigration. But that doesn't mean I believe Latinos should vote for a Republican who clearly would be worse for the immigrant community! It doesn't mean Latinos should refrain from voting and thus make it easier for a Republican to defeat Obama.

Not one of the GOP presidential candidates are even willing to discuss a legalization plan for undocumented immigrants, and some have said they oppose such a plan even after the U.S.-Mexico border is secured! Based on immigration alone, Obama should win the Latino vote — even if it's only by default.

But this is not just about illegal immigration. Some Republican candidates have clearly shown that their problem is not just with illegal immigrants but also with what they see as the threat of the growing Hispanic population. So we'll see Latino spinners shamelessly trying to justify their party's obsession with the Mexican border, while disregarding the Canadian border and/or their party's efforts to make English the official language of the government. Even though, they must know it would deny Spanish-language government services to people who need it. Or their party's many different efforts to suppress the minority vote — the list goes on.

In the past, there were Latino, Republican elected officials who were willing to disagree with their own party. When the bashing of immigrants got too vicious and when the abuse was overextended to affect even legal immigrants and citizens, there were Republican Latinos who had the principles and the courage to speak out in defense of immigrants. They tried to put the interest of their people before those of their party.

But the political climate has changed dramatically in this country. Nowadays, Latino Republican politicians and activists — pressured by the GOP's dramatic swing to the right in recent years — are seen squirming on television as they try to justify to their community why their party is so mean-spirited.

Watch for them in the coming months. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny!

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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