An unreal world
This year, previous deportation records were surpassed while the number of people entering the country illegally across the Mexican border has drastically declined. However, Republican presidential candidates seem not to acknowledge this reality.
Tuesday’s Las Vegas debate showed that GOP presidential hopefuls-and perhaps the party’s base-live in a world of fiction regarding the issue of undocumented immigrants, where good is bad and the absurd appears logical.
This is the only way to explain how a good decision by Texas Governor Rick Perry, approving his state’s DREAM Act, has become his main weakness-or that Perry himself turned around and accused former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney of employing an undocumented immigrant among the landscapers working at his home.
It is hard to imagine that Perry, who lives in Texas, has never gone to a restaurant or hotel where an undocumented immigrant served him directly or indirectly. But in this primary, anything goes, even the ridiculous.
Candidate Herman Cain’s evasive response when asked about his previous comment to construct an electrified border fence is entirely unacceptable. The businessman was given a chance to clarify whether what he said was a joke-as he contends-but Cain refused, lending even more credence to this horrible idea.
Of course, after what Cain said, Michele Bachmann’s idea of building a double-walled fence seemed more reasonable. The congresswoman wants to appear tougher than other GOP candidates, who are advocating for a simple regular fence along the Mexico border.
Incredibly, the candidates discussed immigration as if it were a burning issue, instead of talking about solutions to the unemployment and foreclosures facing millions of Americans.
Of course, it is easier to tackle nonexistent problems than to propose positive solutions to the country’s thorniest issues.Is this what the Republican base, which will elect a candidate to challenge President Obama next year, wants? Their vote in the primary will decide.
What is certain is that it is almost impossible to find a realistic position on immigration among the current GOP candidates. In their zeal to be tough, they refer to a reality that does not exist, whether due to the fact that half of the country’s undocumented immigrants did not enter through the southern border or because deportation policies and the economic crisis have discouraged undocumented immigrants from entering in the first place.
In the Republican primary, the immigration issue has become part of an unreal world. It is unlikely that a candidate who can confront the complex realities of this issue will emerge from this race.
La Opinión/ImpreMedia
