Blame it on the sputtering economy. Or the lacking health care system.
Whatever the reason, illegal immigration has virtually vanished from presidential campaign parlance, replaced by hot-button topics like the Iraq War and the sinking economy.
While opposition to illegal immigration remains fierce in communities across the U.S., no doubt, the three remaining presidential candidates are shying away from the divisive issue, especially as the prospect of passing major immigration legislation in Washington wanes.
“It’s just too mush of a controversial issue,” Marisa Abrajano, an assistant political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, told the Houston Chronicle. “Certainly, I think there are many legislators who want to talk about immigration and get things done, but it’s something the candidates wouldn’t want to debate right now.”
Illegal immigration still ranks as a vital issue among Republican voters. A recent Zogby International poll commissioned by the Chronicle showed that 20 percent of Republicans consider it their top issue, as opposed to 3 percent of Democrats.
But the same Chronicle poll found that a larger percentage of voters, by a slight margin, favor citizenship for undocumented immigrants. And results from other national polls echo a similar – albeit narrow – support for legalization.
Ultimately, the GOP may decide its best to abandon the issue, for now at least.
The Republican Party’s unabashed calls for a clampdown on illegal immigration may be driving Hispanic voters away from the GOP, polls show – a decampment especially hard to swallow given GOP gains among Latino voters under the Bush administration.
The potential retreat could spell disaster for the GOP in November, despite Hispanics’ limited voting power.
While Hispanics represent 15 percent of the U.S. population, and only 9 percent of the eligible electorate, they could make a big difference in the general election, especially in four states that President Bush won in 2004 by less than five percentage points: New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Florida.
