Also known as "the myth of the redemptive Hispanic." Establishment Republicans look at the bordertown barrios through rose-colored glasses, seeing none of the poverty, crime, and social dysfunction, all the while convincing themselves that these run-down shanty town ghettos are bastions of the entrepreneurial spirit and traditional morality.
Exactly, it’s insane. But that kind of thinking is very widespread among older conservatives. Especially older conservatives who have little experience living in an area of high immigration.
We have now the strange phenomenon where Trump was elected President basically on Pat Buchanan’s platform but older conservatives who oppose those kinds of paleocon views got on the Trump train late and are now cheering every time Trump moves away from the positions he campaigned on.