Administration Moves Toward Enforcement

The feeling began to snowball in June with the defeat of a comprehensive immigration bill, and it could perhaps solidify under a fresh crackdown on illegal workers by the Bush administration.

Simply put, immigrant advocates say, many Latinos believe the Republican Party no longer welcomes them.

Those advocates interpret last week’s development -– new rules increasing the penalties on companies that employ illegal workers -– as the latest assault on a community once wooed by the highest ranks of the GOP leadership.

For conservatives, the mood is one of redemption, a sense that the party is finally yielding to what they believe is broad public support for the enforcement-first approach to illegal immigration.

Otherwise at odds, advocates on both sides agree on this: The GOP is hardening its identity as the enforcement-first party.

“Republicans have moved closer to voters,” said Steve Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter limits on immigration levels. “It is clear that Republicans got the message that they can’t be the party of legal citizenship.”

Two of the leading Republican presidential candidates –- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani –- spent this week arguing over who would be tougher on illegal immigration.

In June, Senate Republicans overwhelmingly rejected a comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system despite heavy lobbying by President Bush and key Cabinet members.

Only 12 GOP senators supported the bill that included a pathway to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants.

And last week, the administration announced a crackdown on employers, signaling a new phase in Bush’s complicated relationship with the nettlesome issue.

Case in point: As immigration advocates decried Bush’s regulatory push early this week, his outgoing political adviser Karl Rove told reporters in an exit interview aboard Air Force One that he was “worried” about his party’s legacy.

Rove, along with Bush and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, spent years trying to raise the party's profile with Latino voters.

“You cannot ignore the aspirations of the fastest-growing minority in America,” Rove said.

Yet that’s the direction that immigrant advocates say they see the GOP heading.

“I think Hispanics will desert Republicans in droves,” said Thomas Snyder, national political director for UNITE HERE, a labor union comprised largely of immigrants. “They had begun doing that. But I think it is going to take a great leap forward, rightly so.”

Under the administration’s new rules, which go into effect next month, a company that ignores warning letters about employees with potentially fake Social Security numbers could face increased fines and criminal prosecution.

Conservatives, who have long sought stronger enforcement of existing laws to crack down on illegal immigration, cheered the regulations with cautious optimism.

But immigration advocates and some business organizations say the rules will have a dangerous impact on the economy and could unfairly target law-abiding citizens or even sanction discrimination against Latino workers.

“The effects are sending a deep chill throughout the immigrant community, especially Latinos, who are sensing a rise of nakedly nativist attitudes and Republican politicians stoking that fire,” Snyder said. “Most Republicans think they have decided this is just good politics for them.”

Ever since the announcement, advocates on both sides of the issue have been trying to game out the president’s intentions.

Is he trying to aggravate the business and immigrant interests enough so they, in turn, place pressure on lawmakers to adopt broader reforms?

Or is he simply trying to build crediility with the lawmakers and voters who opposed legalization for the 12 million illegal immigrants because they question the government’s commitment to enforcement?

Immigrant advocates said this week that they were weighing a variety of legal and legislative challenges to slow or halt the regulatory crackdown, while activists on the other side were aiming to keep pressure on lawmakers with faxes and phone calls.

Laura Foote Reiff, co-chairwoman of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, said her organization had sought support from Congress to block funding for the enforcement of the rules.

“But with Congress being so gun-shy about opposing anything dealing with enforcement, we didn’t get very far,” Reiff said.

So Reiff, along with Monica Guizar, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, told immigration advocates during a conference call Wednesday that they were exploring other options.

But there’s little expectation, at this point, that Congress will wade into the rules, let alone take another stab at comprehensive reform before Bush leaves office.

“It is hard to see Congress having the appetite to bring this up,” said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, which favored the Senate’s comprehensive bill.

“I think you will see more business lobbying, but it’s hard to see how it will pay off before 2009.”

Or 2013, according to Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who reportedly told the National Council of La Raza last month that the party would not broach comprehensive immigration reform until the second term of a Democratic presidency.

Snyder said Democrats appear just as averse as Republicans to revisiting the new regulations –- but for a different reason.

“There are a lot of Democrats -- and a handful of influential Democrats -- who feel that Bush and the Republicans have so aggravated Latino voters that the best thing to do is not do anything,” Snyder said, “and it is all going to come the Democrats’ way.”

Hispanics still turn out in relatively small numbers: 8 percent of all voters in 2006, up from 7 percent two years earlier, according to CNN exit polling.

But as the country's fastest-growing minority -– swelling in the Western and Southwestern states that Bush needed to win the presidency -– this slice of the electorate will only rise in prominence, political strategists say.

Bush took about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, but that support dropped last year, as Republicans received only 30 percent.

Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies suggested that Republicans shouldn’t fret.

“The fundamental divide is not so much left/right but the public vs. the opinion leaders,” he said. “The reason why Republicans have gone this way is that it is a winner for them politically, even though they will get beat up in some circles.”