The Phantom Latino Bloc

President Bush’s proposal Wednesday to create a class of legal guest workers in the United States is not accidentally timed. With the election season hard upon him, he needs to court the fast-growing Latino vote. Of course, there’s no reason that a proposal created with politics in mind can’t be good policy, and immigration could hardly be riper for reform. However, it’s far from certain that his immigration proposal will, as he put it, “fill jobs Americans are not filling” -- or even earn him a bonus among Latino voters.

Immigration has been soaring -- it averaged about 1.4 million a year from 2000 to 2002, according to U.S. census data. The shadow economy occupied by illegal immigrants invites the exploitation of workers, and the cash economy deprives the states of precious tax revenue. Although many businesses benefit from cheap labor, most would rather avoid the public relations black eye that Wal-Mart recently received for its allegedly illegal cleaning crews.

Illegal immigrants fill many jobs in agriculture that Americans don’t want to perform, but it’s far from clear that a huge number of other jobs are unfilled. Business has shifted about 2.8 million manufacturing jobs abroad since 2000. The unemployment rate of black males between 16 and 24 is 52%, and blacks have lost a disproportionate number of manufacturing jobs.

Latinos are the country’s fastest-growing ethnic group, and Democrats and Republicans are vying for their votes. Bush has a long and successful record of appealing to Latinos. In 1998 he was the first Republican gubernatorial candidate in Texas to win El Paso County and he captured 40% of the overall Latino vote. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush wisely went out of his way to dispel the image left by former California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s anti-immigrant platform in 1994, instead stressing his attempts to reach out to Mexico. Bush won 35% of the Latino vote in 2000 and wants more in 2004.

But Latinos don’t form a monolithic voting bloc that can be wooed on a single issue, as former Gov. Gray Davis discovered when he signed a bill allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Most Latinos still supported booting Davis out of office. Immigration is an important issue for Latinos, but Bush’s stands on the economy and education are likely to weigh at least as heavily, if not more heavily. Bush will soon show whether his proposal was campaign fluff or meaningful change. By leaving it to Congress to figure out the thorny details, the president can look as if he’s doing something about immigration, even if Congress fails to come up with a plan that can be sold.

But in national politics, as in California, Bush’s advisors should be careful not to assume too much about a Latino voting bloc that -- for the most part -- does not exist.