Congressman Kirk's Immigrant Blind Spot May Cost Him Dearly

At last week's heavily attended town hall meeting on health care reform in Arlington Heights Congressman Mark Kirk continued to propagate what Newsweek just called one of "The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate": that proposed reforms will provide health insurance to illegal immigrants.

Kirk questioned even the notion that reform is necessary, claiming that few of the estimated 50 million uninsured in the U.S. are needy U.S. citizens. He then thundered to the applauding crowd, "Should we provide taxpayer health care for people who are illegally here in the U. S.? I do not think we should provide federally-subsidized health care to illegal aliens." No matter that the House version of reform explicitly excludes "individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States".

Outright anti-immigrant demagoguery reminiscent of the failed campaigns of Republican perennial candidate Jim Oberweis is surprising, perhaps even shocking, from Congressman Kirk. Kirk has carefully crafted a national image for himself as a thoughtful moderate on issues ranging from the environment to ethics to a women's right to choose. But it turns out that Kirk has an intemperate mean streak when it comes to those immigrant groups he believes he can bully. This racial blind spot may well cost Congressman Kirk the U.S. Senate seat which Barack Obama once held and that he hopes to steal from the Democrats in 2010.

Arabs and Mexicans have been Kirk's favorite targets. Perhaps he judged that harsh rhetoric directed at these groups in fact helps him with the substantial Jewish vote and in buttressing his conservative flank in his 10th Congressional District in Chicago's Northern suburbs. "I'm ok with discrimination against young Arab males from terrorist producing states" Kirk said before a crowd of Northwestern students in 2005. "I'm not threatened by people from China," Kirk continued. "I'm not even threatened by people from Mexico. I just know where the threat is from." As you might guess, Arab and Muslim groups were appalled that a sitting Congressman supports blanket discrimination based on racial profiling. I heard no complaints from Chinese immigrants, but Mexican immigrants were not reassured that Kirk is "not even" threatened by them.

Mexican Americans have their own complaints, however. It wasn't enough that in 2005 Kirk voted for the offensive Sensenbrenner bill that would have criminalized all undocumented immigrants, as well as the priests, nuns, doctors, teachers, and even family members who assisted them. Kirk continued to beat the "immigrants are criminals" drum when he sponsored the scarily named "Alien Gang Removal Act", although current law already provides for the deportation of immigrant criminals!

But most offensive to Mexican Americans was his suggestion on the floor of Congress in 2007 that birth control is the answer for too many illegal Mexicans! While awkwardly trying to make a conservative argument in support of funding family planning in the third world, Kirk stated, "family planning would... lower the rate of growth of Mexico's population [and] reduce long term illegal immigration pressure on America's borders." Naturally Mexican Americans found Kirk's intimation that there is nothing about the problem of too many Mexicans that condoms cannot solve to be a poor substitute for serious solutions for our broken immigration laws. And just last week Congressman Kirk snubbed the first ever pan-Asian forum on immigration reform attended by both Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and Senator Roland Burris.

If Kirk were to continue to wish to represent only the toney North Shore, then perhaps picking on Mexicans and Arabs would not be a political problem (although Democrats have been competitive in that district for the last two election cycles).

But now Congressman Kirk aspires to be a Senator representing all of Illinois. The last Republican to win a Statewide race for Senate was Peter Fitzgerald in 1998, who defeated incumbent Senator Carol Mosley Braun with only 50.3% of the vote. Fitzgerald's vote margin over Braun and two minor candidates was 99,000 votes.

So just how important are the Latino and Asian vote in Illinois 12 years later? Of the over 8 million voters registered in 2007 some 556,000 of them were Latino, 136,000 Asians, and 43,000 were Middle Eastern. This total of 735,000 voters now represents 9.1% of the electorate (with African Americans representing another 13% of the voters).

And it turns out that the Latino and Asian voters who know Kirk the best, those of his home 10th Congressional District, just do not like him all that much. Exit polls taken during the past election showed that Kirk got only one of five Latino votes and two in five Asian votes.

So Congressman Kirk's giant racial blind spot with immigrant voters may be the cause of his political death a year from now. Or perhaps the canny Kirk will tone down the immigrant bashing and evolve his position towards a more compassionate, solutions-oriented approach that dulls Latino, Arab, and Asian anger towards him.

I will guarantee one thing though - rhetorical cheap shots on "illegal aliens" and health care is not a good place to start!

Follow Joshua Hoyt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/icirr

Comments

[jsgaetano]

Let's also not forget that Kirk has a VERY serious treason problem to answer for-
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/rep-mark-kirk-r-il-i-told-china-not-to-believe-us-budget-numbers.php

Last time I checked, trying to sell out America to foreign countries didn't play well in Illinois.

[sushi27]

Kirk is a "Bush" republican who lies and trys to pretend he is moderate. He wins by telling outright lies.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

It looks like he referred to "illegal aliens."

[mrdavidkolds]

Hello! The American People passed laws on immigration and law enforcement should enforce these laws. They ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS my friend. When we were an under populated growing country we encouraged legal immigration and people from all over the world came and their cultures and pioneering spirit made our wonderful country.
But this immigration influx is twice as large as any previous and it’s all from one culture! The people coming are from the poor, uneducated, low class in Mexico and Central America. The main stressor on our environment is population. Why would we want millions of underachievers each of whom will father or mother very large families stressing our economy and environment? Is it good for America? Not by any stretch of the imagination. “E PLURIBUS UNUM” means “many uniting into one”. Are they becoming one with the rest of America? Then why is everything you see in Spanish as well as English? Please press 1 if you would like to speak English. BULLCRAP! The only groups who could rationally, if selfishly, be for this massive influx are politicians wanting power, large companies wanting customers and cheap labor and the Catholic Church wanting parishioners. Most liberals are for anything they are told is politically correct without thinking it through even if it contradicts other politically correct opinions like supporting a healthy environment.

[dans5843]

Kirk is running for my senator.

He is a racist!

[marmara33]

I though that politicians have learned since the 2008 election that immigrant bashing won't get them anywhere worth while politically.

[BVictor1]

They haven't learned a thing. In fact they've gotten worse.

[PerryWhite]

So that means that illegal aliens will not be required to have health insurance like the rest of us?

[Ellen Gill - Huffpost Blogger]

He called his own consitutents working for Dan Sealsin 2006 and 2008 "goons and thugs from Chicago." The code was "not one of us" with some racial connotations. Funny thing is that we were from his district.

[VOTER]

The 10th District Dems should host a contest for the BEST bumper sticker
about Congressman Mark "Bush" Kirk.

We owe it to all Illinoisans to spread the word about Kirk's mythical
"moderate" labeling and we, "goons and thugs" know him best.

[LMPE]

Anything to drive the Rethugs away from the minority votes and elect more progressives.

I call upon all right-wing politicians to employ racial slurs whenever possible, and say nasty things about women also.

[Lakeview Greg]

Wait for it. Kirk will do something that will make Oberweis' helicopter ad look downright sane.

[jaxsun]

LOL! Love it.

[Brittanicus]

We must assure that all American workers are gainfully employed, not individuals who have no right to be in our country? It makes me sick to see veterans of Korea, Viet-Nam, the Gulf war walking the streets homeless, while illegal immigrants get gratification from employers and lawmakers. WE NO LONGER CAN SUPPORT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. OUR COUNTRY IS NEAR BANKRUPTCY. DEMAND E-VERIFY TO CHECK THE IMMIGRATION STATUS FOR EVERY US WORKER, BY CONTACTING YOUR LAWMAKER AT 202-224-3121. VOTERS SHOULD COMMAND NO MORE WEAKENING OF ANY LAWS INCLUDING 1986 (IRCA) IMMIGRATION CONTROL & REFORM ACT. JOIN NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH AND BE STUNNED HOW MILLIONS OF VOICES HAVE MADE AN INCREDULOUS DIFFERENCE.

PS: Illegal Immigrants will get full access to THE PEOPLES health care, if the Democrats pass a path to citizenship or better known as BLANKET AMNESTY. This piece of potential legislation, is not being fully advanced to the public and cloaked until after enactment?

[jaxsun]

Brittanicus- think you left the caps lock on.

Numbers USA is part of the Tanton-network of extreme anti-immigration and anti-immigrant organizations. Like FAIR, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Those who believe immigration reform = amnesty have not read any piece of any of the proposed legislation. Read it and then comment.

Here are the elements:

http://www.americasvoiceonline.org/pages/reform_agenda

[mamala4]

Do you listen? Do you read? Illegals will NOT get health care under ANY new reform bill for healthcare­...BUT, they can still walk into any ER and get care...so what does that tell you...we need immigration reform too, but one thing at a time...