Republicans are running ads that show menacing looking Latino men, they can scare people into voting Republican. GOP candidates in Nevada and Louisiana have the most explicitly race-baiting ads in American politics in a decade. Even Pete Wilson and Jessie Helms were more subtle in their day. The scary brown-people motif in English ads is being combined with ads in Spanish actually encouraging people not to vote at all.

.
Huffington Post
On Immigration, Are You a Lamar Smith-John Boehner-Steve King Republican?
October 22, 2010


By Representative Luis Gutierrez
Luis V. Gutierrez is a Democrat who represents the Fourth District of Illinois in Chicago and has done so since he was first elected to the House in 1992. He is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Sub-Committee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and is also Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Task Force on Immigration Reform. He is the principal author of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act (CIR-ASAP, H.R. 4321), a bill with 103 co-sponsors introduced by Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) in December 2009 that has the backing of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

On Immigration, Are You a Lamar Smith-John Boehner-Steve King Republican?



Some excerpts :

Republicans are making a pretty straightforward wager. They are betting that if they run ads that show menacing looking Latino men, they can scare people into voting Republican. Ads airing by GOP candidates in Nevada and Louisiana are the most explicitly race-baiting ads in American politics in a decade. Even Pete Wilson and Jessie Helms were more subtle in their day. The scary brown-people motif in English ads is being combined with ads in Spanish actually encouraging people not to vote at all.

What is at stake is clear: the future of our immigration system and the welcome that immigrants and Latinos feel in this country. Will we have a system that encourages orderliness, legality, assimilation and basic rights or will we continue to maintain the current system of arbitrary restrictions, limited legality, unfair competition, diminished rights, and massive deportation?

On immigration, the question is not whether you are a Pelosi-Obama Democrat, but whether you are a Lamar Smith-John Boehner-Steve King Republican. When it comes down to it, putting people like Smith-Boehner-King at the helm of national immigration policy is a guarantee of more gridlock and chaos. Rep. Steve King of Iowa -- who makes Jim Sensenbrenner look like Dolores Huerta by comparison -- has called for electrified fencing on the border because he has found it effective for controlling "livestock." And if the recent past is any indication, we can expect any number of anti-Latino voter intimidation dirty tricks in the coming weeks in addition to the ads telling Latinos not to vote. We need to make it crystal clear to voters who favor a fair and humane immigration system that a vote for any GOP House or Senate candidate is a vote for the status quo on immigration or worse.

Latino voters, immigrants, Asian-Americans, younger people, pro-union and pro-faith voters -- and anyone who cares about civil rights, human rights, and labor rights -- have a duty to vote this November on behalf of those who do not have the right to vote and who, if the GOP takes over, may not be able to for many, many years to come.

.