July 02, 2013 10:09 AM UTC

The best GOP argument for immigration reform that you never hear on talk radio

•  
• by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Conservative talk radio hosts are sure to mock today's rally at Colorado Republican Headquarters, by immigrant rights activists, urging GOP Congressmen like Rep. Mike Coffman to support immigration reform, including–and here's where the hissing from talk-radio land really starts–a path to citizenship.

The depressing part about the frowny faces on talk radio is they don't see that immigration reform is more likely to help Republicans than Democrats.

Here's the best conservative political argument for immigration reform that you never hear on talk radio.

The current Republican playbook, of demonizing immigrants or scaring people about border security, with the possible hope of attracting swing voters and mobilizing base voters, isn't working. (See the last two presidential elections and races large and small across the U.S.)

Already inclined to lean left, Hispanics have responded to GOP hostility by becoming an even more solid Democratic bloc. 

This will only get worse if the GOP Congressmen, like Coffman, continue to insult Hispanics by voting not only against immigration reform but for deporting young undocumented immigrants who were raised in America, consider it their home, and were brought to this country through no fault of their own.

Still, the talk-radio yappers fret, offering citizenship to 13 million undocumented immigrants will kill an already dying Republican Party, overwhelming America with new Democratic voters.

Really? It's unclear how many new immigrants will even become citizens, but, in any case, it will take about 13 years or more! Who knows what America will look like then and the political dynamics that will be in play.

And if they accept immigration reform, and stop painting themselves as anti-Hispanic, Republicans will have a realistic prayer of reaching out to Hispanics and bringing them into the GOP tent.

There's a chance, as new Hispanic immigrants become more integrated into American life, and more successful, that they'll like the Republican anti-government talking points more than they do now.

But there's zero hope of this happening if the Republican brand represents hostility toward Hispanics.

Isn't this argument at least worth debating on the conservative airwaves?

The current GOP strategy is good if you want to lose elections, and the GOP is doing a great job of it. But if you want to win, it's not working.

Accepting immigration reform, with a path to citizenship, might stop the GOP bleeding, even just a little bit–and provide hope in the long term, particularly when you compare it to the absence of hope for the GOP in the status quo.

Plus, passing immigration reform is the right thing to do. My interred illegal-immigrant Italian in-laws will tell you that.