July 9, 2008
McCain Makes Appeal to Hispanics
By MICHAEL COOPER
WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain told a major Hispanic group here Tuesday that he remains committed to passing the kind of immigration legislation that angered many Republican voters last year after first securing the nation’s borders.
Speaking to the convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens, Mr. McCain noted his efforts to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, which was supported by President Bush and such Democrats as Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, but which fell apart last year after an angry grass roots movement that viewed it as tantamount to amnesty rose up to oppose its passage.
“I and many other colleagues twice attempted to pass comprehensive immigration legislation to fix our broken borders, ensure respect for the laws of this country; recognize the important economic necessity of immigrant laborers, apprehend those who came here illegally to commit crimes, and deal practically and humanely with those who came here, as my distant ancestors did, to build a better, safer life for their families,” Mr. McCain said, “without excusing the fact they came here illegally or granting them privileges before those who have been waiting their turn outside the country.”
He added: “Many Americans, with good cause, didn’t believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts. We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States of America. But we must not make the mistake of thinking that our responsibility to meet this challenge will end with that accomplishment. We have economic and humanitarian responsibilities as well, and they require no less dedication from us in meeting them.”
Mr. McCain’s support of the failed immigration bill, which many Republican primary voters were vigorously opposed to, threatened to doom his candidacy last year. He was regularly attacked on the issue by Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and Republican contender, who spoke of it as the McCain-Kennedy bill. Angry voters often brought it up to him in town hall-style meetings in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Then, during the primaries, Mr. McCain shifted his emphasis and began speaking of first securing the borders before trying to pass other components of the legislation, like its provision for a guest worker program, and he was able to win the nomination in a crowded field.
When Mr. McCain was taking the most heat over the subject, he sometimes warned that Republicans risked alienating Hispanic voters, just when the party had been making gains in attracting them. President Bush drew 40 percent of the Hispanic voted in 2004, exit surveys showed.
But since the immigration debate has roiled the country, polls have shown that Republicans have been losing the support of Hispanics. Indeed, some recent surveys have shown Mr. McCain losing to Senator Barack Obama, who planned to address the convention later today, by large margins. One recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll showed Mr. McCain losing the Hispanic vote to Mr. Obama by a two-to-one margin.
Mr. McCain devoted most of his speech at the convention to what he described as the “slowing” economy, laying out his plans for tax cuts and saying that they would benefit small business owners. He also spoke of one of his fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam, a Mexican-American, of the many Hispanic names etched on the Vietnam War memorial, and of the many Hispanic troops now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who are not yet American citizens.
“Those men and women are my brothers and sisters, my fellow Americans,” he said, “an association that means more to me than any other.”
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