IMMIGRATION

Immigration fervor sweeps up even independent-minded New Hampshire

Dan Nowicki
The Republic | azcentral.com
Speaking about immigration after an appearance at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio told The Republic that people in Iowa and New Hampshire “recognize that we have to do something about it. What I don’t think has any chance of passing is a comprehensive approach.”

Editor’s note: The 2016 presidential election will be decisive when it comes to the nation’s broken immigration system. The campaign has again reminded us of the powerful emotions the immigration debate can provoke.

The Arizona Republic sent reporters and photographers to five influential presidential-nominating states to find out what this campaign season will mean for the future of American immigration. Read more at immigration.azcentral.com.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — New Hampshire was supposed to be the state where Republicans could have a more pragmatic discussion about immigration.

The overheated rhetoric that has dominated the GOP's presidential primary — and has bedeviled the party since Mitt Romney’s sound defeat in 2012 — could cool against a backdrop of picturesque New England scenery and person-to-person retail politics.

The Granite State, which hosts the nation’s first presidential primary on Tuesday, has long held a reputation as a more-centrist bulwark against the socially conservative leanings of Iowa Republicans, who held their caucuses last week. Ostensibly more-moderate independents are allowed to vote in the primaries here, and general-election viability has traditionally been weighed heavily in voters' decisions.

How state demographics shape presidential race

But this year, even in New Hampshire, where immigration is not yet a real-world issue, the GOP presidential candidates’ furious debate of border security and “amnesty” has made it a political one. And the Republican candidates who have drawn the hardest lines on the issue have led the GOP race here, just as in Iowa.

Donald Trump’s high-volume outsider campaign — with vows of mass deportations and a border wall built at Mexico’s expense — has lifted him to a commanding lead in polls here.

Trailing far behind are the candidates associated with more moderate immigration positions: Marco Rubio, whose surprise third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses has given his campaign fresh momentum, and rival GOP governors Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Chris Christie.

Ted Cruz, another Republican immigration hardliner who has tried to take credit for killing the most recent attempt at overhauling immigration policy in Congress, edged Trump to win Iowa and likely can count on a bounce in New Hampshire.

That diminishes the chances Republicans will nominate a candidate whose position on immigration resonates beyond the party’s conservative base — or a candidate who advocates a comprehensive solution to the nation’s immigration breakdown.

That is unless Rubio, Bush, Kasich or Christie can pull an upset here.

The Democratic field doesn’t feature such stark contrasts. But in the Democratic race here, too, outsider candidate Bernie Sanders, a left-leaning U.S. senator from nearby Vermont, fresh off a virtual tie in Iowa, has put a scare into party front-runner Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of State.

Even before his photo finish in the caucuses, Sanders has consistently led Clinton in New Hampshire polls. One of the most recent ones gave him a 33-point advantage.

The ramifications for the country and future efforts to reform the nation’s broken immigration system could be significant. Since the 1970s, the major parties’ presidential nominees have won either Iowa or New Hampshire.

Rubio changes course

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., talks to Millennial voters at Rivier University in Nashua, N.H.

Bending to the political winds on immigration, the more-moderate GOP candidates have emphasized enforcement and downplayed their past advocacy for reforms that would help undocumented immigrants achieve legal status.

For Rubio, a senator from Florida who has been battered by rivals as too liberal on the issue, it has meant disavowing the “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration-reform bill he helped write. He also advocates hard-line stand against renewing President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which shields young immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation.

“There is no way to deal with immigration comprehensively in a massive piece of legislation,” Rubio said at a November town-hall-style event at Rivier University in Nashua. “Trust me, there is no way.”

That bipartisan bill, which passed the U.S. Senate in 2013 but never became law, would have balanced a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States with more than $40 billion in border-security spending and a modernized visa system.

Rubio told the Nashua crowd that he now advocates a three-step program that starts with more border walls and personnel, mandatory verification of immigration status for employment, and an entry-exit tracking system. That would be followed by an overhaul of legal immigration so it’s based on merit instead of family relationships.

How we got here: The many attempts to reform immigration, secure the border

Once those steps are accomplished, Rubio predicted, Americans would be reasonable about dealing with immigrants who have settled in the U.S. without authorization, but who otherwise are not criminals.

“People have received it well in Iowa and New Hampshire and everywhere else,” Rubio told The Republic after an appearance at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. “They recognize that we have to do something about it. What I don’t think has any chance of passing is a comprehensive approach. And I’ve been honest in assessing that, especially after the events that have happened over the past two and a half years.”

Hardening attitudes

New Hampshire has not seen an influx of Latino immigrants. It's a contrast to Iowa, where immigrant labor has poured into the state, drawn by the meat-packing and agricultural industries. The state is 91.3 percent White.

“This is not an ethnically diverse part of the country,” said Evan Cerasoli, a Rye, N.H., Democrat and New York transplant who came to hear Bush speak at an event in November. “It’s very White. It’s a very different thing.”

Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and an associate professor in the political-science department, said hardening attitudes on immigration among Republicans here are a reaction to the national debate rather than first-hand experience.

Immigration has risen to the No. 2 issue for New Hampshire Republicans, topped only by the economy, the pollster said.

“It’s almost a disqualifying issue if you take a position toward more open immigration,” said Smith, who is co-author of the book “The First Primary: New Hampshire’s Outsize Role in Presidential Politics.”

“You’re going to have to do a lot of explaining, and the rule in politics is: If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” he said.

Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who represented neighboring Massachusetts from 2010 to 2013 and unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire in 2014, put it more succinctly. Brown told The Arizona Republic that New Hampshire GOP voters flatly oppose “amnesty,” the derisive term immigration-reform critics use for proposals deemed too lenient on undocumented immigrants.

“They want the border shut, they want E-verification, they want the ability to make sure anybody who is here is here fairly and legally,” said Brown, who on Tuesday endorsed Trump. “It’s pretty simple.”

It’s a turn for a state that mostly has taken a bottom-line approach to choosing Republican presidential nominees, carefully weighing their electability.

In 2008, the state picked Sen. John McCain of Arizona; in 2012, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor. In both cases, New Hampshire picked establishment Republicans who went on to secure the GOP nomination.

Myth or fact? 6 things to know about immigration

Some Republicans saw in Romney’s 2012 defeat a warning to the party. He was haunted in the general election by hard lines he drew on immigration to secure his victory in the primaries, and lost the Latino vote to Obama by a lopsided 71 percent to 27 percent.

Afterward, national Republicans made enacting immigration reform and Hispanic outreach top priorities.

But it’s Trump who has towered over the race in New Hampshire, even though polls indicate he could have a tough time defeating the Democrats' Clinton in a general election match-up.

Bush's 'compelling alternative'

Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks during a town hall meeting in Laconia, N.H.

The establishment Republican contenders have adjusted their positions, often “explaining,” as Smith said, how their immigration plans would boost the economy or help the GOP move past a vexing political issue before Democrats can use it against them again in the 2016 general election.

Bush on the campaign trail touts what he calls a conservative plan to fix the problem.

“First and foremost, you have to control the border,” Bush said at a “No B.S. Backyard BBQ” event hosted by Brown in Rye, N.H. “Coming here legally needs to be easier than coming here illegally. If you can’t get that done, nothing else works.”

Bush talked up e-Verify, which confirms a worker’s eligibility for employment, and called for a way to keep better tabs on people who overstay their visas. He also wants to move to a skill-based immigration system, which he maintains would boost the economy.

Bush supports a pathway to legal status, short of citizenship, for immigrants who take steps such as paying a fine and taxes and learning English.

“And for those that come illegally and are here, I don’t believe that you’re going to deport, as Donald Trump has suggested, 500,000 people a month over two years,” Bush said. “It would trample on civil liberties in this country. It would destroy communities. It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And it’s not going to happen.”

Bush told The Republic he wasn’t tailoring his immigration message to New Hampshire and couldn’t say if it was playing better here than in Iowa or other states.

“I haven’t noticed,” Bush said. “The good news is I’m pretty consistent about my views. Simplifies things.”

Bush tried to appeal to Republicans’ political instincts, warning the Rye crowd that Democrats will continue to use immigration as a wedge issue in national elections as long as the problems fester.

“We can play along with it and keep losing elections, or we can offer a compelling alternative to fix it, and make sure that people know that we’re not trying to divide people by ethnicity or race,” he said to applause. “We want people to be lifted up, and do it in a fair way so that it’s not at the sacrifice of people that are struggling in our own country.”

Immigration glossary: Terms of the debate

But at another event in Raymond, Jane Bailey, a 64-year-old Republican retiree, pressed Bush on the prospect of a Trump-style border wall.

“They built the Great Wall of China — nobody laughed at that,” she told Bush. “They built the Berlin Wall — nobody laughed at that. A wall can be built. Most of us came from immigrants, OK, but they came in the legal way.”

Bush agreed on the need for a secure border.

But, doing more “explaining,” Bush added: “There are places where you couldn’t build a fence. It’s just so rugged and difficult that it wouldn’t be possible. But where fencing is appropriate, do it, fine. But we need a much more comprehensive approach to make sure that people don’t come in.”

After the event, Bailey said she was satisfied with Bush’s answer, but was still leaning toward Trump.

Christie takes a page from McCain's playbook

Republican presidential candidate and N.J. Gov. Chris Christie speaks during a campaign stop in Bow, N.H.

Christie amassed what is, by Republican standards, a liberal immigration record as New Jersey governor.

On paper, he fits the mold of the establishment Republican that New Hampshire voters typically support. And his struggling candidacy got a second wind after he won the endorsement of the conservative New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper.

As he campaigns, he is following the playbook of McCain, who won the New Hampshire primary in 2000 and 2008.

Under fire from “amnesty” opponents in 2007, McCain, a longtime champion of immigration reform, pivoted to a border-security-first position that since has been mimicked by many Republican candidates.

Christie already has gone further than McCain in distancing himself from his past support for comprehensive immigration reform. In a May Fox News interview, he dismissed a pathway to citizenship as an “extreme way to go,” and he has joined with other Republican governors in trying to block Obama’s programs to deter deportation for millions of immigrants.

Christie has not, however, embraced Trump’s call for a border wall and mass deportations, which he has dubbed “too simplistic” to work.

Kasich's call for an 'adult argument'

Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks at a town hall-style campaign event at the Three Chimneys Inn in Durham, N.H.

Meanwhile, Kasich, a two-term Ohio governor, largely has stuck to his more mainstream positions on immigration reform, although he, too, acknowledges the need “to control our border just like people have to control who goes in and out of their house.” His plan includes eventual legal status for most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants, in addition to a “robust” guest-worker program and finishing the fence.

Kasich has tried to distinguish himself by going after Trump. At a November debate in Milwaukee, Kasich interrupted the proceedings to ridicule Trump’s call for mass deportation, saying requiring the millions of otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants to pay a fine and stay is a better answer.

“Come on, folks,” Kasich said. “We all know you can’t pick them up and ship them back across the border. It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument.”

For his part, Trump has largely dismissed GOP rivals such as Bush as weak on immigration.

In response to Kasich’s outburst, Trump pointed to President Dwight Eisenhower’s controversial 1950s deportation program known as “Operation Wetback,” a much smaller effort than what he has proposed, as a historical precedent.

“We have no choice,” Trump said of mass deportation.

'People seem to like' Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump meets with attendees during a campaign stop in Milford, N.H.

Cerasoli, the Rye Democrat, said he doubted any of the other Republicans can stop Trump, whose celebrity-driven campaign could perform better in a primary than the Iowa caucuses, which required significant on-the-ground organization.

When he attended a rally in Laconia, N.H., Cerasoli said he was stunned by the “rock star” treatment Trump received from the crowd.

“At first, people were kind of embarrassed to say that they liked Donald Trump,” Cerasoli said. “Now, I hear it all the time. I don’t really understand it myself, but people seem to really like him.”

Agustin Medina, who quizzed Rubio on immigration at his event in Nashua, disagrees with Trump's positions on immigration and was evaluating other candidates.

As an immigrant from Argentina who just became a U.S. citizen last year, Medina is looking forward to voting in his first presidential election.

He likes Rubio’s biography — he comes from an immigrant Cuban family — but wanted more details about how Rubio would streamline the legal immigration system and improve it for other families.

“Immigration is big for me, because I’ve lived it,” he said.

Medina perhaps provided a hint at why Trump has maintained his lead here. Some anti-immigrant sentiment simmers beneath the otherwise friendly New England atmosphere, he said.

“I think this particular area is little bit more open-minded than others,” Medina said. “(But) sometimes people don’t pick up on my accent or something and I can definitely hear the other side of the story when people assume that I’m not an immigrant. ... It’s definitely there.”

One Nation: Phoenix

One Nation, which draws on the combined power of the nationwide USA Today Network, will stop in Phoenix on March 21 for a discussion of immigration. Get your tickets now for food, beer, bands and knowledge at onenation.usatoday.com and continue reading The Arizona Republic’s coverage of the issue at immigration.azcentral.com.