Trump Proved GOP Can Win Hispanics Without Embracing Amnesty

President Trump won 32 percent of the Hispanic vote. That's up from the 29 percent he received in 2016. And it's better than Mitt Romney and John McCain's performances in 2012 and 2008.

This strong showing stunned not just Democrats, but many establishment Republicans, who've long claimed that Trump's brash rhetoric and actions on immigration would repel Latino voters. After all, the president has attempted to repeal DACA, implemented dozens of new policies to deter illegal border crossings, and even scaled back legal immigration.

Yet these actions have evidently made the president more, not less, popular among many Hispanic Americans.

That's not as surprising as it sounds. Like most Americans, Hispanics vote their economic interests. And they recognize that curbing immigration is one of the best ways to protect their jobs and wages.

It is simple economics that immigration depresses Americans' wages. When the labor force grows faster than job creation, competition for work increases — so employers can pay less to fill any open positions. Native-born Americans lose up to $118 billion each year to illegal immigrant labor, according to Harvard economist George Borjas. And they lose hundreds of billions more due to legal immigration and guestworker programs.

The wage effect is particularly notable for less-educated Americans — including many Hispanics and other minorities — who compete most directly with foreign workers. Only 15 percent of Hispanics in the workforce have a college degree, compared to around a third of the workforce overall. 

Over the past few years, President Trump has repeatedly argued that excess immigration hurts American workers. And many Hispanics clearly agree. In fact, Latinos were more likely to support a near-total suspension of immigration during the pandemic than white voters, according to a poll conducted earlier this year by the Washington Post and University of Maryland. Sixty-nine percent of Hispanics favored that suspension, compared to 67 percent of whites.

Support for the president among Hispanics stretched from Florida to the border states. Consider the Rio Grande Valley along the Mexican border, where over a quarter of residents in some Texas counties live below the poverty line. Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton won Starr County —  over 96 percent Hispanic — by a whopping 79-19 margin. But this year, the president nearly pulled even with the Democratic nominee, losing by a mere 52-47 margin. That's a net swing of 55 percentage points towards President Trump. Zapata County, 94 percent Hispanic, actually flipped red after giving Hillary Clinton 67 percent of its vote in 2016.

A glut of exploitable cheap labor may help America's corporate executives, but it does nothing but hurt the average American worker. Trump succeeded in 2016 because he campaigned on the promise of prosperity for all, not just for the few. Though he was imperfect, his success then and his performance with Latinos now show that this is a promise with broad appeal.

In the coming policy battles with President Biden, Republicans should remember that lesson. The GOP must not abandon economic nationalism but show how these policies protect all Americans' jobs and wages. This is, in fact, a politically popular formula and a morally right one because it lifts the boat for all.

Pedro L. Gonzalez is assistant editor of American Greatness and a contributor at Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.