Kansas GOP’s anti-immigration mailings are insulting

Nationally, the Republican Party is toning down its anti-immigration rhetoric, realizing it needs to attract Hispanic voters if it wants to win elections. But the Kansas Republican Party apparently never got that message – or it just doesn’t care.

It’s been sending out ugly campaign mailers that falsely claim independent U.S. Senate candidate Greg Orman supports amnesty and is “giving away the keys to the country.” Orman has an “open door policy on illegal immigration” and “won’t keep us safe,” the mailers say.

In other words: Be afraid.

In reality, Orman supports the bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the Senate by a large margin last year – but was opposed by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. The bill would reform the immigration process, significantly increase border security, allow for temporary work visas, create a special agricultural guest-worker program, and provide a 13-year path to citizenship to certain qualifying undocumented immigrants.

The bill is backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Its comprehensive approach is also endorsed by more than 20 Kansas business and agriculture organizations, including the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, the Kansas Farm Bureau and the Wichita Independent Business Association – groups that tend to be very Republican.

More than 30 mayors of Kansas cities also favor comprehensive immigration reform. “The immigrant population of Kansas includes valued members of our community,” the mayors wrote in a letter to the Kansas congressional delegation. “We are supportive of a solution that allows reasonable access to citizenship while assuring adequate border security.”

So what is Roberts’ position on immigration reform? It’s difficult to tell from the campaign.

Roberts said “no amnesty” and “secure the border” over and over during candidate debates, even when the questions had nothing to do with immigration. The GOP campaign mailers repeat the same bumper-sticker slogans.

But what does “secure the border” actually mean? There already are more agents and more fencing at the southern border than ever, and the Senate immigration bill that Orman backs would double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol and complete 700 miles of additional fencing. How much more money does Roberts want to spend?

And what about the more than 11 million illegal immigrants who are already here? Roberts and the Kansas Republican Party blast Orman for pointing out that it would be fiscally and logistically impractical to find and deport all of them – and that doing so could devastate the western Kansas economy. Is that what Roberts and the Kansas GOP support? They won’t say.

It’s easier to send out insulting mailings.

For the editorial board, Phillip Brownlee

This story was originally published October 29, 2014 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Kansas GOP’s anti-immigration mailings are insulting."