Dear Readers:
Next Tuesday, the voters of Iowa will caucus in locations across that state and select the first delegates to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions this summer. Just as it has been for the last several election cycles, immigration is front and center. That’s the case even though most Americans usually rank the issue fairly low on their list of priorities. The state of the economy, security from terrorism, the ongoing wars abroad, climate change and other issues are usually more pressing.
The Democrats and Republicans have staked out opposite ends of the spectrum on the issue during the primary campaign season. For the most part, the Democrats have backed the President’s immigration reforms, have condemned the Commander-in-Chief’s aggressive deportation policies and supported broad immigration reform. Bernie Sanders has hinted that he still maintains positions on employment-based immigration that are not pro-immigration, but he has been careful to avoid bringing those votes up (though Hillary Clinton certainly doesn’t mind reminding voters).
The headlines on the Republican side have been, of course, from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz who have staked out tough positions on both illegal immigration and legal immigration. Cruz used to proudly talk about his promoting tripling the number of H-1B visas, but has now abandoned that view in favor of further restricting legal immigration. And Marco Rubio has also tried to distance himself as much as possible from his past pro-immigration positions. Other candidates like Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Chris Christie have tried to promote more nuanced, balanced views, but they have largely been marginalized in this race.
The problem for the Republican nominee is that anti-immigrant views will doom them in the general election race. There will be two million more Latino voters in 2016 than in 2012 and those voters are even less likely to support a Republican than in prior election cycles. That means the Republican nominee will need to draw an even larger percentage of the white vote than in the past and they’ll be doing so with a stronger economy than in 2008 or 2012 and against a candidate whose name is not Barack Obama. So you will no doubt see the Republican nominee try to pretend like everything being said in the primary season never happened. Mitt Romney found out how hard that task is. And his rhetoric was pretty mild compared to what we’ve seen this go around.
The Democratic candidate, on the other hand, doesn’t need to tack to the center at all. The center in the US already largely agrees with the positions they’re taking. The majority of people want to see immigration reform that includes creating a pathway to people legalizing and changing our immigration laws to work for a 21st century society.
It is possible that the public is less pro-immigration than in prior races. Certainly, the Syrian refugee crisis, the Central American child asylees and lingering economic uncertainty all feed in to people being nervous about immigration. But there were similar stories in the last several election cycles as well. What seems to be the case is that the Republicans are facing a conundrum of having to take suicidal immigration positions in order to sway the small number of people who will determine who gets the nomination and then praying to find a way to undo the damage in November. That doesn’t seem likely.
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In firm news, we are still in the middle of the Visagate lawsuit where our firm has co-counseled in a suit to force the Obama Administration to honor the original version of the October 2015 Visa Bulletin. In mid-January an amended complaint was filed and the government will have until February 12th to file its new motion to dismiss. We will update you as soon as we have news on the case. Check out our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VisagateLitigation2015/?fref=ts.
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I’m also very excited to announce the publication of my new book The Physician Immigration Handbook. I’ve wanted to write a book in plain English for doctors, employers and recruiters for many years and am really pleased with how it turned out. You can find the book on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Physician-Immigration-Handbook-Greg-Siskind/dp/0997083301/ where it can be purchased in print or in ebook format.
Regards,
Greg Siskind
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.