The Hispanics I know work hard at not-too-snazzy jobs, raise families, and save every penny they can to spend on a snazzy new car. They are my neighbors, and my friends.
They're nothing to be afraid of. Talk to them. They're friendly. They appreciate America. They don't like Democrats when they hear about them actin' liberal, especially on social issues. They don't like taxes, either. They don't know much about government handouts and are skeptical. Why pay for lazy people to sit on their fat asses when they are working like dogs? They hear about Hillary and how she didn't shave her armpits as first lady of Arkansas. They suddenly feel like becoming Republicans.
Hillary has something like 80% support by the Hispanics here ---and there are many here. Depends on where you live I think on what you say. Some of the old traditional Hispanic families of the SW USA and those who left Mexico during it's revolution and of course the Cubans really are Conservatives, most coming over the Mexican border right now are not Conservatives. Not by a long shot.
See Immigration & The American Future, for a more in depth discussion of immigration issues.
On the purely political front, you need to consider, also, not only the general immigration and ethnic issues, but the vulnerability of people to demagoguish manipulation. As long as we have universal suffrage--or something very close to it--one has to consider questions of how well any group may be expected to exercise the suffrage from an American standpoint.
You are dealing with people who have a different set of images with which they identify. They are not primarily the images of Western Civilization, nor the more recent images of the Founding Fathers, and the pioneer settlers of the United States. When the chips are down, this differences in the images with which one identifies can be crucial--and would be crucial, even if the people involved had ever displayed the same capacity for participation in political self-government as the early Americans. (I do not find any evidence in Mexican History to suppose such an equivalent capacity; do you?)
As an American Conservative, I am devoted to preserving the very unique ethos of American civilization. That is a lot more complex than simply looking for work and a higher standard of living.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
They know quite a lot. Check out welfare rates along the US-Mexican border ----in many counties they are now over 50%. And this ----displaced NAFTA workers who came from Mexico are suing for more handouts ---you don't see them moving to other areas looking for jobs, not even back home to where they came from even if there are jobs there.
They don't uh? Well, they seem pretty tuned in about government handouts here in the Chicago Area. Just about every Illegal I see at the grocery store breaks out food stamps to the cashier. And they don't look like they are hurting in the clothing and transportation categories either.