Rep Lamar Smith is attacking one of the most successful Mexican-American columnists that has ever existed — Ruben Navarrette. You can read the full article here.   What is up Lamar’s sleeve?  E-verify is.  He claims it is voluntary but every single Senate office I visited last month in Washington D.C.  told me that Lamar wants to introduce a national e-verification program in August.  He’s setting out the pillows because Lamar Smith thinks e-verify will happen without protest.

The State of Florida rejected their state version of e-verify and no thanks to Lamar Smith, we are going to lose the State of Florida in 2012 because in essence he is not listening to the business community.  The business community does not want to embrace more government bureaucracy via e-verify without a reasonable immigration solution. Businesses depend on competitive labor, and Lamar wants to increase the wage rate.

Why is Lamar Smith attacking Ruben but ignoring the backbone of our economic engine?  Did he forget small businesses and farmers are the backbone of our country?

More importantly, the DREAM Act activists have already declared that they will not trade e-verify programs in exchange for passage of the DREAM Act.  You can read their response here. They already know Lamar Smith wants them to forget about their mother and father for a cheap trade.  Lamar Smith is NOT in support of maintaining the family unit and he wants to give Latinos the scraps in exchange for harsh enforcement policies by dangling the DREAM Act carrot in front of our DREAMers noses.  Pretty revolting if you ask me.

It looks like we are headed back to the days of Sensenbrenner where massive protests were sparked with enforcement only policies.  When massive protests are sparked again WE ARE GOING TO BLAME LAMAR SMITH.

(Above)  Photo taken in 2006 during the Sensenbrenner enforcement policy days.

The only way we will know President Obama is sincerely genuine in helping us with the immigration issue is if he puts a bill that will garner strong bipartisan support on the floor. He has been promising to fix the immigration issue for years now, and we hope the immigration issue does not get treated as a political football again. We also hope Republicans do not use this issue to further alienate Hispanics from the GOP party, but time will tell.  Read Official Statement by Somos Republicans below:

National Hispanic GOP Group Responds to President Obama’s Immigration Speech in El Paso, Texas

For Immediate Release – 10 May 2011

Phoenix, AZ –SOMOS REPUBLICANS is the largest conservative Hispanic Republican grassroots organization in the country committed to promoting positive solutions that confront our community and the nation today.  We are glad that President Obama wants to elevate the discussion on legal immigration again.  We have been staunch supporters of legal immigration across the Union — from Florida to Texas to Iowa to California and more. As immigration advocates, we have suffered because isolationists  want unrealistic enforcement-only policies and they have attacked our positions that can only benefit the American economy.

On the eve of Arizona’s harsh anti-immigrant law, we heard President Obama’s speech last year that emulated the one we heard today, however, the problem still exists.  We were glad the Obama administration filed the injunction that led to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in essence declaring the immigration issue a federal issue.  Because this is a federal issue, the Obama administration must put a legal immigration bill on the floor in order to facilitate meaningful debate towards solving this tough issue.

Even though we are very happy to hear President Obama raise the immigration issue again, we have not forgotten his promise in 2008 when he promised Latinos to fix the broken immigration system. Obama still has time to put a genuine and reasonable immigration solution that both parties can support before the upcoming 2012 elections.  We know that Democrats could have passed an immigration solution the same way they passed Obamacare when they had the super majority in Congress, however, the job was not fulfilled.

That said, Republicans also should acknowledge that President Obama has spent more money on securing the borders and deporting more undocumented immigrants than President George W. Bush.  As a result of President Obama’s increased deportations of immigrants, the Gallup shows his approval among Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing demographic, has also fallen.

We sincerely hope the immigration issue is not being used as a political football yet again.  We have personally watched several families that have been forced apart due to mass deportations.  It is discouraging for us to see our Latino Democratic and Republican brothers and sisters beg for help as we rally at the state capitols fighting these anti-immigrant laws. It is painful seeing our Latin community suffer. Hate crimes have increased due to the anti-immigrant sentiment against Latinos nation-wide. We see American-born children crying as they are left behind when their parents get deported.  Some Republicans who claim to be “pro family” have been silent with regard to immigrant families being forced apart.

We are skeptical about President Obama raising the immigration issue again,  and we do not really know if he has a real intention of fixing the problem. The only way we will surely know he is serious about this issue is when he ensures an immigration bill is put on the floor that will garner strong bipartisan support.

We acknowledge that both Republicans and Democrats need political covering on the immigration issue, and we promise to give the President, Republicans and Democrats immigration political covering as we continue to build a national movement for the issues that affect the Latino community.  We believe that working across the aisle is vital to the bipartisan solution we are seeking.

It is unfortunate that Governor Jan Brewer will not uphold the conservative decision of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals with regard to Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law.  Two of the three judges in the panel were appointed by Republican Presidents.   Judge John T. Noonan, an appointee of President Reagan, wrote that Arizona had clearly tried to create its own immigration and foreign policy, and Judge Carlos T. Bea, an appointee of President George W. Bush, was a partial dissenter.  It is irrational for the United States to have 50 different versions of immigration law as rogue states continue to try to implement their own.

State Senator Russell Pearce was the chief sponsor of SB 1070 where he has on numerous occasions spoken passionately  for “Operation Wetback” policies, therefore, we must not allow his bigotry and emotions to guide us into situations that clearly violate our Constitution.  We have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution and we must continue to defend it, but we cannot defend it when we introduce laws that violate it.  Even though we recognize that the immigration system is broken, two wrongs do not make a right with implementing and signing laws that clearly violate the Supremacy Clause.

In March 2011, Arizona Republican legislators sent a clear signal that they wanted to be solution-makers in Arizona as they stayed clear of pushing for criminalizing civil offenses when they voted against five immigration laws recently.  It is unfortunate that Governor Brewer is unable to depart from the issue that once made her popular.

We believe we can solve this issue without violating our Constitution with a Secure Borders and Legal Immigration Plan.  GOP state legislators across the nation have blamed the federal government and the Obama administration for not addressing this issue.  These state legislators have been disingenuous when they say Obama has not secured our borders because under the current administration, more undocumented immigrants have been deported than former President George W. Bush.  We believe it is time for the Obama administration and federal lawmakers to fix the broken system in a true bipartisan manner that will secure the borders and provide legal immigration benefitting Americans.

The Arizona SB 1070 law not only violates the Constitution, it has left our state in economic shambles.  Our tourism industry has lost millions and millions of dollars.  The agricultural industry has experienced labor shortages and deficits.  The housing industry is a disaster as foreclosures continue to rise, and small business owners have seen a tremendous loss in their profits that is upwards of 38%.  The Republican Party is supposed to be pro business and pro growth, but all this law has managed to do is the opposite of that.

SOMOS REPUBLICANS  urges President Obama to fix the broken immigration system that has bipartisan Senator support because Kansas Secretary of State – Kris Kobach will continue to  architect numerous unconstitutional laws that have not surpassed any of federal court systems.  Kobach introduced and supported laws in California, Arizona, Nebraska and so forth costing states millions and millions of dollars to defend. The Arizona SB 1070 law so far has cost the state of Arizona approximately $4 million to defend and we cannot afford to defend – nor is it fiscally responsible to defend these unconstitutional laws.