Reasons Republicans Should Love Immigration Reform
Republican senator Rand Paul is embracing a pathway to citizenship. A panel at CPAC last week eschewed the term “illegal immigrant” in favor of "undocumented." The Republican National Committee recommended the GOP push for comprehensive immigration reform.
It’s a far cry from the hard-fought GOP primary, when presidential hopefuls competed to paint themselves as the toughest immigration hawks in the room. The strategy played poorly among Latino voters, 71 percent of whom backed President Barack Obama.
The GOP's move only makes sense. Obstructing a long-awaited immigration reform would cost Republicans dearly among Hispanic voters, a Latino Decisions poll released this week indicates.
But it doesn’t just have to be a cynical numbers game. There’s plenty of reasons the GOP should support immigration reform that have nothing to do with shallow attempts to curry favor with Latino voters.
We imagine that, deep down, most members of the GOP would back comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship if they only stopped to look how closely it aligns with the ideals they profess. In fact, you could probably say that most Republicans are immigration reform supporters -- they just don’t know it yet.
After all, immigration reform jibes with some of the most deep-seated platforms of the Republican Party.
Check out 7 reasons why Republicans should love immigration reform in the slideshow above.