President Obama’s plan to revamp his popularity on the immigration issue by demagoguing it seems to be going smoothly. After watching Senate Republicans and Democrats come up with a plan on immigration that would include border security measures and a pathway to citizenship for those here illegally, President Obama swiftly deployed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to state that border security was doing just fine, then focus almost completely on a pathway to citizenship.
Obama knows what he’s doing. A new poll from Pew Research/USA Today shows that even though 47 percent of Americans think that any immigration plan should center on border security, better law enforcement, and a pathway to citizenship, President Obama’s rating on immigration has jumped to 50 percent, even though congressional Republican numbers have been stuck at 33 percent. Meanwhile, Obama’s approval rating among Hispanics have skyrocketed on the immigration issue, from 28 percent in November 2011 to 63 percent now.
Turns out that Republican effort to reach out to Hispanics by focusing on immigration has been a failure. That’s not because Republicans are insincere, or oppose the plan that a plurality of Americans like. It’s because Obama has claimed that Republicans don’t want a plan, even as he does everything he can to undermine the bipartisan consensus on immigration.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.