Rubio is working on his own version of the DREAM act to help undocumented children. GOP fears Latino revolt

Republicans worried about their party’s standing with Hispanic voters have launched an election-year scramble to put a better face on their party’s immigration problem.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is working with senators from other immigrant-heavy states like Jon Kyl of Arizona and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas on their own version of the DREAM Act to help undocumented children. Kyl and Hutchison have held several closed-door meetings with a key Democrat to see whether there’s bipartisan support for a compromise plan. Republicans are also exploring changes in visa rules to attract more high-skilled workers and tourists.


But above all, key Republicans are pushing a change in rhetoric, urging Mitt Romney to shift tactics away from the strident comments he’s made during the primary season in hopes of convincing Hispanic voters that Republicans will give immigrants a fair deal.

“He’s going to have to do something to work on that and get that up,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said of Romney’s poll numbers with Latinos. “I think there are ways we need to communicate with the Hispanic community that are not being communicated now.”

While Republicans say they aren’t about to embrace “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, the ideas being considered on Capitol Hill amount to a recognition that the party needs to appear more friendly to the country’s powerful voting bloc.

“You can’t win without doing well among Hispanic voters, and I don’t think it’s any secret that the primary has not been particularly helpful from the standpoint of the tone,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is leading GOP efforts to take back the Senate. “I think there is a sense on our side that we need to come forward with a responsible approach that if we don’t define ourselves what that approach is, other people are more than happy to take advantage of the void to try to define us.”

The short-term upside is obvious for Republicans: The Hispanic vote in 2012 looms large in swing states like Florida, New Mexico and Nevada, and the party has miserable approval ratings with Hispanics. The longer-term outlook is just as critical — Hispanics are a rapidly growing demographic group in the country and one of the youngest, and the GOP needs to sell the next generation of American voters on its policies.

But it also amounts to a risk: pushing measures to appeal to Latinos could split the party’s base that is steadfast on border security and enforcement.

Rubio and Kyl both insisted the current legislative efforts are not timed to election-year politics.

But Rubio, fresh off his endorsement of Romney on Wednesday, said Republicans have “not done a good enough job to be the pro-legal immigration party.”

Rubio acknowledges the party needs to be more sensitive in how it treats young people who were brought to the country illegally when they were children. As Democrats eye a renewed push on the DREAM Act, which would pave a way for citizenship to children of illegals who seek higher education or military service, Rubio and senior Republicans are drafting their own proposal, which is in its early stages. Among the ideas under consideration is whether to narrow the scope to those seeking to enlist in the military and whether to stop short of granting full citizenship rights.

“These kids haven’t done anything wrong, they were brought here at a very young age and now find themselves in these circumstances and have a lot to offer this country in its future,” Rubio told POLITICO. “I think the ways that some in this building have tried to address it in the past have been problematic for many.”

The top Democratic sponsor of the DREAM Act is skeptical of the effort.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he has sat down with Hutchison and Kyl “many times” to find a bipartisan proposal, but he said there’s little point to moving a bill since there’s “no chance the House will take it up.”

“This half-DREAM approach may have a lot more to do with the November election than changing the law,” Durbin said.

For Republicans, the polling outlook among Hispanics right now is bleak.

In November, nearly 22 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote, the most ever and an increase of more than 2 million in 2008, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan group. In that election, Sen. John McCain pulled in support from about 31 percent of Hispanic voters, a double-digit decrease from 2004, when George W. Bush won the election with an estimated 40 percent to 44 percent of Hispanic voters.

“The good news for us is the Hispanics and the country as a whole are center-right,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who said tying the DREAM Act to more H1-B visas could amount to an election-year deal. “The bad news for us is that we’re bleeding among that demographic.”

But a late December Pew poll found that just 23 percent supported Romney in a head-to-head matchup with Obama. And a Fox News Latino poll released earlier this month found just 14 percent of voters would support Romney over Obama.

Jose Fuentes, who co-chairs the campaign’s Hispanic steering committee, called the Fox News poll an outlier.

“I’m not saying we’re making great strides with Hispanic voters, but we’re not at 14 percent,” he said. “What we see on the street is much different.”

Fuentes noted that in the Florida primary, Romney won more than 50 percent of the Latino vote, and the 14 percent turnout there was 4 points higher than in the 2008 GOP primary. Citing polls, he noted that among Latinos, immigration typically ranks at about the fifth-most important issue, behind jobs, the economy, health care and education.

And he said Obama has been making inroads with Latinos after spending the past three years targeting the group, an effort he said would be replicated by both the Republican National Committee and Romney campaign.

Fuentes predicted that Romney would need about 38 percent of the Latino vote in the fall, a number he said could be achieved with the former Massachusetts governor’s message on jobs and the failure of the president to deliver on immigration reform as he promised.

But there’s little dispute that the primary has badly damaged Romney in the eyes of many Latinos. He excoriated Rick Perry for backing a policy in Texas granting in-state tuition for children of illegal immigrants. And he slammed Newt Gingrich for being soft on immigration, which led to the former speaker accusing Romney of being “anti-immigrant” during the Florida primary. Romney also hailed the tough Arizona immigration law as a national “model” and has been critical of Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Supreme Court justice who was selected by Obama.

Romney has said he’d veto the DREAM Act in its current form, despite its wide support within the Latino community. But he’s signaled he’d be open to a narrower proposal targeted at those who want to join the military.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-illegal immigration group, said “it is not at all clear that the way to win Latino votes is to pander on immigration.”

“Granting amnesty to illegal aliens and increasing the overall influx of immigrants would only exacerbate the problems that Latinos and other Americans are most concerned about,” Mehlman said.

But in an interview, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the tea party freshman who is working on a joint agenda for his party, said Gingrich “added positively to the conversation” during the campaign when he said it’s not “humane ” to deport someone who has been living, working and paying taxes in the country for years.

But neither Johnson nor Rubio would answer directly when asked if they were satisfied with Romney’s handling of the immigration issue so far.

“I think we’re just beginning to hear about that issue,” Rubio said. “And as we pivot toward the general election, there will be more discussion of those issues that will be one of the challenges the Republican Party faces, [which] is how do we deal with this issue in a way that honors both our heritage as a nation of immigrants but also as a nation of laws.”