Democrats' Phony Compassion in Dealing with Immigrants

Democrats' Phony Compassion in Dealing with Immigrants

by Scott Wheeler

Refugees are streaming into the Southern border of the U.S. from Central American countries through Mexico by the tens of thousands, and Democrats are doing everything they can to keep them here. The public wailing over the conditions from where the immigrants came is merely politics--Democrat style. 

The recent spike in child refugees from Central America directly corresponded with the Obama Administration's policy of allowing immigrant children--regardless of their legal status--to stay in the U.S. Democrats have always had a soft spot for poor immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and why shouldn't they? Immigrants from those countries vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. In the 2012 presidential election, Obama received 71% of the Latino vote, Romney got 27%, and similar trends show up in almost all elections across the nation. 

Democrats get a huge advantage from certain immigrant groups and those preferences betray the Democrat's compassion.

Does it seem overly cynical to question Democrats' motives and compassion? Let us go back to President Clinton, who experienced an influx of immigrants from Cuba. According to the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Relations:

"As social and economic conditions deteriorated in Cuba, many more Cubans, using what boats they could find, headed for Florida in the summer of 1994. These 'rafters' posed a diplomatic problem for the Clinton administration."

Notice that "social and economic conditions deteriorated" was the reason for refugees fleeing the socialist paradise of Cuba. Sounds like the very same reasons that Democrats are using now for the refugee problem; back then, however, Democrats had a different way of dealing with the crisis:

"[T]he president [Clinton] announced that the 'rafters' would not be allowed to reach the United States. Rather, the Coast Guard returned them to Cuba or detained them at the Guantánamo naval base in Cuba."

  

Does anyone recall any media reports about the heartless treatment of Cuban refugees at the hands of Democrats? Of course not, because there were none. Cubans not only live in poverty under a communist dictatorship, but are persecuted for dissent from the communist government there, the precise kind of refugee that the U.S. should welcome, but perhaps that is why Democrats didn't want them here:

"The [Clinton] administration knew that if the Cubans reached Florida, they would be covered by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act."

Why the disparity between how Democrats treat one set of refugees versus another? We have seen that immigrants from Mexico and Central America overwhelmingly favor Democrats, but NOT Cubans. According to the Cuba Transition Project, in the 2000 election, Republican George W. Bush received 75% of the Cuban vote, and in 2004, Bush got 78%. No wonder Democrats have done their best to keep truly suffering Cuban refugees from making it to the U.S., having experienced their socialist policies first hand, few of them will ever vote for a Democrat. And Florida, where almost all Cuban/Americans live, is an extremely important electoral state. In the last four presidential elections, Florida was critical in deciding the winner--with Obama winning it by a thin 1%. 

If Clinton had not cruelly stopped Cuban refugees from reaching Florida in the 1990s, the increase in Cuban/American citizenship could have made Florida a solid Republican state. The Democrats' outrageous advocacy for illegal immigrants is rooted in political self-interest, so before anyone buys their phony compassion-for-immigrants-play, look at Democrats' record with Cubans and recognize that if immigrants from Central America and Mexico voted for Republicans the way Cuban/Americans do, the Democrats would be advocating that they be stopped before they ever arrive here--and the ones who got here illegally would be on the first bus back south of the border, maybe even with a knife in their backs.