Legal Immigrants Going Red

The U.K. Telegraph posts a story by Toby Harnden in San Diego, CA that should give Democrat strategists nightmares. When legal immigrants are sworn in as American citizens, they are encouraged to register to vote. More and more of them are signing up as Republicans.

This is a major departure from historical tradition.

Quite simply, the reason is that these people -- legal immigrants, remember -- view illegal immigration as cheating:

“For a long time, immigration was OK,” said Sarah Wright, 49, a seamstress from Mexico who arrived in the US legally in 1986.

“But now, no more. A lot of really bad people come from Mexico and commit crimes.

“People are coming in and having two, three, four babies and going on welfare. Some are making money here and spending it back in Mexico.

"That’s not right. They should go back to Mexico and get a permit.”

This is exactly the point! These statements correctly summarize the biggest problems with illegal immigration. And, there can no longer be any doubt about which party -- with a few exceptions, of course -- is the bigger friend of the illegal immigrant: the Democrat party.

The conventional wisdom is that the Republican party's steadfast opposition to illegal immigration would cause defections of the Hispanic vote in 2008, helping the Democrats. Now, that may not be the case.

There's my two cents.