Republicans are locked in a “demographic death spiral” and will be crushed in the 2016 Presidential elections if they block the proposed overhaul of the US immigration system, according to a leading Republican senator.
Last week the Senate overcame a procedural hurdle in order to move forward on the debate over the first attempt to reform the US immigration system in more than a generation, with lawmakers from both major political parties voting to start formal debates on the proposal that would offer a path to citizenship for around 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. However, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says that efforts by some conservatives to block the reform will send the Republican Party into obscurity and irrelevancy if they are allowed to succeed.
Graham says that many people are unsatisfied with Obama’s Presidency and will be looking for an alternative in 2016 but if immigration reform is blocked by the Republican Party any goodwill will be lost.
“If we don’t pass immigration reform, if we don’t get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn’t matter who you run in 2016,” Graham noted on Meet the Press on NBC. “We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who we run in my view.”