LatinaLista — A funny thing (read sad) has happened since the midterm elections — Republicans have claimed that the American people have voted them back into office because they miss GOP leadership.
Hardly.
Every exit poll published since the elections clearly show the opposite — the American people are equally fed up with both Republicans and Democrats.
In fact, a CBS poll shows that three in four voters want the parties to compromise, not claim victory over another.
When that occurs, there’s no compromise on the minds of those who would grab glory where there is none.
Yet, in state after state, the GOP winners have set about their business like it’s a Republican administration in the White House.
One of the most grievous examples of a Republican politician running with an imaginary ball is in Texas. Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle has been busy all day filing anti-immigration measures.
From “requiring a voter to present proof of identification” and “the creation of the offense of criminal trespass by an illegal alien and to certain procedures for arresting illegal aliens for committing that criminal offense” to “the enforcement by certain governmental entities of laws governing immigration” and “relating to information regarding the citizenship and immigration status of public school students,” Riddle is proving to be as clueless about the Latino constituency in the Lone Star State as Nevada’s Sharron Angle was about the ancestry of Latino school children.
As it stands now, Texas is the second most populous state home to Latinos; more urban school districts are majority Latino than any other ethnicity; anecdotally, there are a lot of Latino families who are mixed status — and the Latino population just keeps growing in the state.
As has always been the issue with irresponsible government leaders like Ms. Riddle, she is confusing the issue of illegal immigration to criminalizing the people.
If the issue of illegal immigration is to ever be resolved, and especially in the state of Texas where the undocumented population is so woven into Texas society that local economies would not just crumble but some would actually disappear, the approach needs to address the realities that exist.
The undocumented are here and have been here and have been supporting the Texas economy. The real threat does not come from these people but the coyotes and smugglers and those Latino citizens whom drug cartels have recruited to be their drug carriers, human traffickers and assassins/kidnappers on this side of the border.
The cry is always for border security but it’s not border security from undocumented immigrants looking for a job that are the threat. It’s the gun-toting cartel members who want to control the border.
If Texas really was serious about addressing border security and illegal immigration, they would realize that stunts like Ms. Riddle’s have the potential for doing nothing more than wasting precious legislative debate while the real threats are allowed to grow and fester for one reason — because a political party that didn’t win wants to pretend it did.
