Immigration issue lends itself to political posturing from all sides

LatinaLista — Altogether there are six legal challenges to Arizona’s SB 1070. A federal judge announced today that the hearing date for the federal government’s suit against Arizona will take place July 22 — seven days before SB1070 is to go into effect.

Critics of the federal lawsuit pretty much agree on the same thing — they say it has more to do with political posturing by the Obama administration than any humane act of kindness.

They’re also saying that it’s because Obama doesn’t want to enforce border security or enforce immigration laws. Yet, what most GOP politicians don’t want to admit is that we have reached this point in the immigration debate simply because the Republicans have done exactly what they are accusing Obama of doing.

The GOP has politicized this issue through their uncooperativeness and refusal of signing on with Democrats to start the debate in Congress and the allowance of anti-immigrant factions to take over the issue. And as far as political posturing goes, words speak for themselves:

Reaffirming last week’s immigration address, President Obama proves yet again that he is not serious about dealing with the problem of illegal immigration,” said Rick Scott, health care executive and FL Republican gubernatorial candidate. ” He would rather punish law-abiding citizens for enforcing the law than deal with the illegal immigrants who are breaking the law. When I am elected governor, I’ll bring the Arizona law to Florida and the president will have one more lawsuit on his hands.”

Scott and other GOP candidates will certainly use this issue ad nauseum as they stump through the next few months until the November elections, and who can blame them?

With the immigration issue, they don’t have to think for themselves, they can use canned rhetoric and repurpose it for their communities, but best of all — they don’t have to personalize the issue.

The GOP has clearly decided not to put a face to the issue because that would defeat their objective.

Remember how McCain’s camp pounced on parading “Joe the Plumber” during the presidential election? By doing that, they strove in that instance to put a face to the issue, not to educate the public or even show that the GOP understood the public’s pain, but simply for political gain and to beat Obama. They knew by putting Joe and his story out there that people would personalize the issue and either empathize or sympathize with the man.

It’s no coincidence that the GOP political strategy has gone in full throttle reverse when it comes to the immigration issue. The GOP wants to dehumanize and depersonalize the illegal immigration debate by only spewing the terms “illegals” or “illegal immigrants” when talking about the real people who are at the center of the issue.

Yet, we have “Marta the Maid,” “Santiago the Student,” “Jose the Construction Worker” and the list goes on. Every one of these people is as real as “Joe the Plumber” and if ever an issue should be personalized it’s one that affects the future of 11 million men, women and children.

By not relaying the personal stories of these people, who are hard-working, otherwise stay out of trouble with the law, earn college degrees and are an asset to their communities and families, the American public can’t be blamed for not understanding who they are, what brought them to live in the United States or empathize with them, especially if all they hear are the negative and fearful things being said by Republican politicians.

It’s clear the GOP is using undocumented immigrants to further their agenda, just as was done with Joe the Plumber, but they really need to take a lesson from one of their own when it comes to using people simply for political gain.

Remember “Joe the Plumber”? Well, it seems he can’t stand John McCain now.

Joe, also known as Sam Wurzelbacher, told an audience in Pennsylvania this week that McCain “is no public servant.”

“McCain was trying to use me,” Wurzelbacher said, according to public radio correspondent Scott Detrow. “I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy.”
“I don’t owe him s–,” Wurzelbacher continued. “He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it.”

In fact, Wurzelbacher’s dislike for McCain is so strong that he no longer supports Sarah Palin simply because Palin will campaign for McCain’s re-election.

And imagine, that’s just one guy unhappy with one Republican. What about 11 million plus another 30 million, give or take a few thousand, unhappy with the whole party?

I have a feeling the immigration issue then will become very personal to these politicians and this party.