Free Republic

George Bush’s political strategists have long promoted amnesty for illegal aliens as a device for increasing the Republican vote among Hispanics. They also warn that denying rights to illegal aliens will hurt the GOP. A Hispanic backlash in California after Proposition 187 (the 1994 voter initiative that denied illegal aliens many publicly funded services) turned the state from red to blue, they claim; a similar rout awaits the party if it does not embrace liberal immigration policies. There is scant evidence for either of these ideas. The 1986 amnesty signed by President Reagan did not trigger a Latino surge into...