I agree with Dick Morris on this. He notes that the Latino vote went to Gore by 65 - 35 in 2000, but only went to Kerry 54 - 46. That is a huge "swing" and the Republicans would be ill-advised to ignore it. Jump up and down and holler about illegal aliens all you want, but electoral politics is the bottom line.
Morris has some good ideas here - - control the border (with a BIG fence), ID all workers who come in from Mexico, and deport those who refuse to comply. Sounds okay to me.
Electoral politics does not explain why Bush submits budgets to Congress that don't contain funding for BP agents that Congress had just previously authorized. It's not like anyone in the Hispanic community would have used it as a rallying cry against him if all he did was submit a budget that merely provided for what the law authorized.
If anything, pulling stunts like that fosters anger in the Republican ranks over that issue, which further advertises to Hispanics that the Republicans don't like illegal immigration (assuming they'd consider that a bad thing). From an electoral perspective, the action made no sense whatsoever.
Electoral politics also does not explain his ready support for the "REAL ID" Act, which was billed as an anti-illegal measure. In reality, it didn't do much except further erode state sovereignty over certain types of documentation (which no doubt is why it passed so easily). But the fact that it's perceived to be an anti-illegal measure would, if your theory is correct, be detrimental to Republicans' standing with Hispanics, far moreso than simply budgeting for BP agents that Congress authorized.