Hispanics and immigration

Here’s the results of a Gallup poll from a couple weeks ago that shows that Hispanic voters are significantly more concerned about health care and jobs than about immigration:

Lots of media and/or Republican commentary has suggested that since Hispanics really just care most about jobs, they should be as open as anyone else to voting for Republicans.  What this really misses, though, is that even if immigration is the “most important” issue for only 12% of Hispanic voters and surely has huge symbolic importance even for voters who are much more concerned about jobs and the economy.  Quite simply the Republican party is full of extremely hostile anti-immigration rhetoric, at least some of which, represents sentiments of xenophobia and anti-Hispanic attitudes (there’s some good political science on this) .  Hispanics aren’t stupid– they know what is driving a significant portion of these immigration attitudes among Republicans.  Those, from a simple ethnic/political identity perspective it’s easy to see why they would not want to ally themselves with the Republican party regardless of positions on other issues.

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