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OPINION

Brewer: President Trump's immigration pause is patriotic

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Whenever anyone questions the wisdom of allowing large-scale illegal immigration, the first thing we invariably hear from the open-borders left is that it will outrage Hispanic-Americans. More often than not, though, this is a cheap, race-baiting lie that they use to cloak their own policy preferences under the pretense of tolerance.

In fact, the most persistent myth confounding the immigration debate in this country is that Hispanic voters overwhelmingly support mass migration and oppose enforcing the law.

President Trump’s visit to essential workers making respirators at a Honeywell facility in Phoenix should help to debunk it.

The visit is more than just an opportunity for the president of the United States to thank essential workers all over the country.

It’s also an opportunity for the president of the United States to offer hope to the millions of workers who have been rendered jobless by the coronavirus pandemic.

The work being done by essential workers such as those at the Honeywell facility is allowing us to flatten the curve and start getting America back to work as quickly as possible --- and the president is already working to ensure that American workers won’t have to compete with foreigners as they get back on their feet.

This week, in response to President Trump’s eminently reasonable order to temporarily suspend the flow of new permanent residents at a time when more than 30 million Americans are out of work due to pandemic-related lockdowns, the Democrats reflexively went on the offensive.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called the executive order “inflammatory.” The Democratic chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Joaquin Castro, said it was part of President Trump’s “anti-immigrant agenda.”

Arizona’s own Democratic U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva --- a man who has made a career out of opposing the enforcement of immigration laws, even to the point of calling for a boycott of our state after I signed SB1070 --- thinks the immigration freeze is “about xenophobia.”

There’s only one problem with this predictable narrative: it’s complete nonsense, just like the idea that all Hispanic Americans support open borders. A Washington Post poll found that 69% of Hispanic voters favor a pause on immigration during the pandemic --- higher support than the same poll found among white voters.

This isn’t a sentiment that emerged in response to the coronavirus, either. Only 14% of Hispanic respondents to a 2018 poll thought America had “too few” immigrants. Like other Americans, Hispanics recognize that immigration must serve the country’s needs.

Democrats and the open-borders lobby should have learned by now that their old tactics are no longer effective.

For a year and half leading up to the 2016 election, most pundits --- “Never Trump” Republicans among them --- told us that Donald Trump’s hard line on immigration was going to doom him among Hispanic voters. In reality, he earned even more Hispanic support than “moderate” Republican Mitt Romney did in the previous presidential election.

Instead of adapting their strategy, liberals have only doubled-down since then.

As the Democratic primaries got underway, Biden and his rivals adopted radical and unpopular proposals such as “free” taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens in a shameless attempt to pander to the imaginary monolithic Hispanic pro-immigration vote.

Embarrassingly, it was Hispanic liberals who eventually had to tell them to tone it down.

Kristian Ramos, a former spokesman for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, wrote an article in February noting that Hispanic support for the president has increased after three years of liberal attacks mischaracterizing his immigration policy as racist.

President Trump will show them how it’s done (May 5) when he comes to Phoenix. The workers at the Honeywell facility he’ll be visiting are producing the vital N95 respirators our medical professionals need to save lives. They, like all American workers of every race and ethnicity, need us to quickly restore a strong job market backed by a vibrant economy once the invisible enemy is defeated.

President Trump’s common-sense decision to temporarily suspend new permanent immigration while America recovers from the coronavirus pandemic isn’t “xenophobic” --- it’s patriotic.

Editor's note: Jan Brewer is a former governor of Arizona.