Putting the Wedge to New Citizens

Ever think you’d hear Republicans like Pete Wilson, Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich demanding more, not less, red tape and bureaucracy in the federal government?

That is, in effect, what they are doing by raising alarums about the surge in citizenship applications by recent immigrants and calling on Congress to slow the process down.

The basis for their concern, they insist, is not that new citizens are registering in vast numbers to vote as Democrats. No, it’s because of a canard raised by a few disgruntled employees of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, who claim that “thousands” of the people being naturalized this year have criminal records, which would have made them ineligible for citizenship.

INS officials admit that some ineligible applicants have slipped through, but insist that the numbers are negligible. The nation’s busiest INS office, in Los Angeles, has handled more than 218,000 naturalizations so far this year, according to District Director Richard Rogers. Upon review, only 120 were found to have been wrongly approved, a number not out of line with the rate in the past, and they are now being reviewed even further for possible withdrawal of citizenship.

Rogers’ candor did not deter Wilson from calling two press conferences last week to denounce the INS in ludicrous language. He accused the federal government of welcoming “dangerous criminal aliens” with “open arms,” and setting the stage for “massive voter fraud.”

Gingrich, in a speech delivered in Michigan on Tuesday, said that the INS is allowing “drug dealers, rapists, murderers and armed robbers” to become citizens, adding that “what makes it doubly infuriating is that they get to vote.”

That is the first time I can recall anyone accusing the INS of coddling immigrants. Still, these outbursts are getting little attention in the press because most journalists see them for what they really are--political posturing in the waning days of an election campaign that Republicans fear they are going to lose.

Nobody knows how many of the 1 mil-lion citizens naturalized by INS in the last year have actually registered to vote. Estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 in California alone, and big numbers are expected to turn out Nov. 5 in key states like Texas and Florida. This election will be the first time these new citizens have had a chance to cast ballots since Republicans began routinely using immigration as a “wedge” issue--an emotional issue that divides voters along ethnic or class lines.

It doesn’t take a political science degree to figure out that many of these new voters are likely to vote for Democrats rather than Republicans. That obvious point no doubt is what motivated Vice President Al Gore to streamline the INS’ naturalization procedures under the Clinton administration’s program to “reinvent” government by reducing bureaucracy.

As if to validate Republican fears, last week the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a Latino think tank based at Claremont Graduate School, made public the results of a survey that shows new citizens of Latin American background overwhelmingly in favor of President Clinton: Almost 85% of the respondents to a telephone survey said they would vote for the president’s reelection, only 5% for Dole.

Wilson was the first nationally prominent Republican to use immigrants as a political whipping boy when he seized on Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigration initiative of 1994, to rescue his floundering campaign for reelection. He hasn’t changed his tune since, and now may be dragging Dole and the rest of the GOP down with him.

Although Dole has been lagging in the polls, he initially resisted playing the immigration card in his campaign, largely at the behest of moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and running-mate Jack Kemp, a California native who courageously opposed Proposition 187 two years ago.

Now that Dole is working hard to win California, he is embracing the spirit of Proposition 187. But he doesn’t do it with the conviction of Wilson or the fire of Gingrich. He sounded halfhearted in a speech two weeks ago in Riverside when he suggested that “criminal aliens” may be getting citizenship.

I suspect Dole finally bought into this not because he really believes in it but because GOP strategists have advised him that the immigration “wedge” issue can turn out enough Republican voters to hold onto Congress and the state Legislature.

Unfortunately for the Republican Party, even halfhearted immigrant bashing has serious risks. This year, a million newly minted Americans are listening to their first political campaign. If they are alienated by what they are hearing from Wilson, Gingrich and Dole, they could be lost to the Democrats for a long time to come.