Ann Coulter and Her Amazing Ignorance of Hispanics and Immigration

Ann Coulter, Nativist

Ann Coulter just doesn’t get it! In her latest anti-Hispanic rant, Rubio’s amnesty a path to oblivion for GOP, she again demonstrates her ignorance when it comes to Hispanics and immigration. Geraldo Rivera is spot on with his comment “Ann Coulter is either dopey or a Democrat masquerading as a conservative to kill the Republican Party.” It’s time to school Ann Coulter!

Ann Coulter and Her Big Lies About Hispanics

Ann Coulter once again repeats the myth that Hispanic immigrants invariably become Democrats:

The Democrats never change their ideas; they change the voters. For decades, Democrats have been working feverishly to create more Democrats by encouraging divorce (another Democratic voter!), illegitimacy (another Democratic voter!) and Third World immigration (another Democratic voter!).

Strangely, some Republicans seem determined to create more Democratic voters, too. That will be the primary result of Sen. Marco Rubio’s amnesty plan.

Fewer Hispanics are divorced (8.9%) than whites (12.2%), or blacks (12.9%), which according to her analysis would make Hispanics less likely to vote Democrat. 47.8% of Hispanics are married versus 51.4% in general, but since the median age for Hispanics is 27, versus 42 for whites, 32 for blacks, and 35 for Asians 3.6% is not much difference with the 15 year median age difference. Hispanic couples are also more likely to marry after having an illegitimate child, making out-of-wedlock births less relevant in welfare statistics.

Ann Coulter made a whopper of a lie with her claim:

The vast majority of illegal aliens are Hispanic, and Hispanics have a higher teen birthrate than any other ethnic group. In California, a majority of all Hispanic births are illegitimate. That’s a lot of Democratic voters coming.

62% of Hispanics were born here as citizens, and another 19% are naturalized citizens or have legal status. The remaining 19% are dominated by young adult males by a 60/40% ratio. Since men don’t have babies, just 7.6% of Hispanics are unauthorized immigrant women, and studies show the U.S. born children of unauthorized immigrants will pay $80,000 (1996 dollars) more in taxes than receive in government services over their lifetimes, but let’s not let facts get in the way of Ann’s Hispanic fantasy.

Anyone can view credible birth statistics at the CDC. The vast majority of births to ALL teenagers are out-of-wedlock, but for some reason Ann Coulter focuses just on Hispanic teenage mothers, whose out-of-wedlock percentages are less than ‘all races”, and just slightly above white teenage moms. Birth statistics from CDC, percent of births to unmarried women for ages 15-19:

• All races – 88.1%
• White Non-Hispanic – 83.9%
• Black Non-Hispanic – 97.6%
• American Indian or Alaska Native – 80.9%
• Hispanic – 86.3% (Note to Ann Coulter: 86.3% is less than 88.1%!)

Coulter insinuates a popular myth about Latinas being over sexed, on welfare, etc. largely due to negative stereotyping by Hollywood. Hispanics have complained about this for decades. However, interesting statistics from the CDC show Hispanic women strongly tend to be monogamous, a cultural norm. Median number of lifetime opposite-sex sexual partners (females aged 15–44 years):

• Hispanics – 1.6
• Whites – 3.7
• Blacks – 4.4
• Ann Coulter celebrity boyfriends – 5 (not from CDC)

In other words, Hispanic women have less than half the number of opposite sex partners than whites, and barely one third that of blacks, confirming there’s more monogamy among Latinas, a cultural norm. The count of Ann Coulter’s reported celebrity boyfriends of course doesn’t include non-celebrity boyfriends.

Hispanics, Immigrants, and Welfare

Ann Coulter also threw in the usual Nativist welfare argument, claiming that despite barring unauthorized immigrants from welfare they would sue and get welfare anyway. Legal immigrants have been barred from welfare for the first five years of their residency since a 1996 federal law passed, and challenges to the 1996 law have all failed. Before the 1996 law, less than half of needy legal immigrants sought welfare assistance, underlining that immigrants come here to better themselves, not mooch.

The website Statistic Brain, using statistics from US Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Commerce, and the CATO Institute, reports 38.8% of welfare recipients are white, 39.8% are black, 15.7% are Hispanic, 2.4% are Asian, and 3.3% are “other.” The U.S. Census reports whites are 74.8% of our population, blacks 13.6%, Hispanics are 16%, and Asians 4.8%.

Poverty rates for whites are 13% vs. 38.8% of welfare recipients, 33% for Hispanics versus 15.7% of welfare recipients, and 35% for blacks vs. 39.8% of welfare recipients. In other words, when poverty rates – not population – are considered, the only demographic group that is significantly overrepresented on welfare rolls are whites! Even considering population only, 15.7% of welfare recipients are Hispanic, while 16% of the population is Hispanic. By no benchmark is Hispanic welfare usage high!

Additionally, an August 2012 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 57% of eligible U.S. Citizens applied for Medicaid, as compared to only 30% of eligible immigrants. All this data confirms what demographers who study immigration have been telling us for years…  the vast majority of immigrants, whether here legally or illegally, come to work or be with family, not to mooch off of government programs or commit crimes against others.

The large majority of Hispanics are either immigrants themselves, or 1-2 generations removed from immigrants. There was no surge in welfare usage following the 1986 amnesty, as most immigrants living below the poverty line were able to take advantage of their legal status to increase their earnings to above the poverty line. It is obvious the claims of immigrants abusing welfare is yet another bogus argument designed to block immigration reform and push Americans in the direction of mass deportations.

Ann Coulter and Her Strange Bedfellows

John Tanton

Ann Coulter’s obsession with Hispanic birth rates seems odd, until we realize that Ann Coulter is obviously heavily influenced by John Tanton and his disciples, who are population reduction freaks and faux conservatives. John Tanton infamously stated:

Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down!…As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?

Gobernar es poplar translates “to govern is to populate.” In this society where the majority rules, does this hold? Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile?

Mario H. Lopez recently wrote Hijacking Immigration, detailing the deep ties between pro-abortion and population reduction groups and the leadership of the Tanton network (FAIR, NumbersUSA, CIS), groups that Ann Coulter is fond of quoting for her “immigration facts.” It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the anti-any-immigrant lobby is always obsessed with birthright citizenship, immigrant fertility rates, etc.

Tanton even boasted how he would manipulate conservatives in this 2001 letter:

The goal is to change Republicans’ perception of immigration so that when they encounter the word “immigrant,” their reaction is “Democrat.”

Our plan is to hire a lobbyist who will carry the following message to Republicans on Capitol Hill and to business leaders: Continued massive immigration will soon cost you political control of the White House and Congress, given the current, even division of the electorate, and the massive infusion of voters about to be made to the Democratic side. We are about to replay the Democratic hegemony of 1933-53, fueled back then by the massive immigration of 1890-1924.

If Canada’s Conservatives Can Win Minority Votes, then Why Not America’s Conservatives?

Ann Coulter would do well to look at what Canada’s Conservative Party has done with immigrant voters. Tim Mak writes in the Frum Report, How Canada’s Conservatives Won the Immigrant Vote:

Without patronage, Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has executed a minority outreach plan that, for the first time, has started a genuine conversation with immigrant voters – a conversation that has increasingly ended with these voters considering a Conservative vote for the first time.

To previously hostile ethnic groups, Kenney has reached out in ways that showed he understood their details. Through symbolic gestures, he could assuage antagonism – or at least get their attention.

And it has worked. In 2006, a visible minority voter was three times more likely to vote Liberal than to vote Conservative. By the 2008 federal election, ethnic minorities were about as likely to vote Conservative as they were to vote Liberal.

Through much of the 2000s, Canadian Conservatives wracked their heads, trying to engineer a constructive ethnic outreach program. They were mired in decades-old muck: minority voters tended to see them as racists, as xenophobes, and as anti-immigrant. On the other hand, the Liberal Party dominated this expanding segment of the Canadian electorate. In 2000, 70% of all visible minorities voted for the Liberal Party.

Can the GOP Repeat the Success of Canada’s Conservative Party?

This news from Canada should not surprise us, because from 1996 to 2004 the GOP more than doubled the Hispanic GOP vote, from 21% to 44%, thorough constructive engagement and sensible immigration reform stances, just like Canada’s Conservative Party in recent years!

Abraham Lincoln

In the early days of the Republican Party, Lincoln saw an opportunity to win the German immigrant vote, despite the “know nothing” Nativist wing of the GOP. Prior to Lincoln, German immigrants didn’t vote for Whigs or Republicans, which had not sought the German vote, and worse, had alienated many German immigrants with anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Lincoln astutely reached out to Germans, partnering with Carl Shurz, a prominent immigrant, and even bought a German language newspaper. Lincoln won both presidential elections in large measure due to the German immigrant votes he won with sensible engagement! Lincoln recognized if you don’t ask for someone’s vote, then you won’t get it!

Latino Voting Patterns

News for Ann Coulter

1. You don’t win votes by insulting people, for example inferring they have high illegitimacy rates, are headed for welfare, will become a permanent underclass voting Democrat in exchange for ‘free stuff’, etc.
2. You won’t get someone’s vote if you don’t ask for it (i.e. engagement and outreach). Canada’s Conservative Party, George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln proved conservatives can win immigrant votes.

It is clearly obvious that Ann Coulter buys the Nativist narrative that immigrants want ‘free stuff’ and can be expected to vote Democrat, and she seems to have no idea how alienating her rhetoric is to many Hispanics. Marco Rubio is right when he says “tone matters” and “It’s very hard to make the economic argument to people who think you want to deport their grandmother.” Marco Rubio is doing a marvelous job of undoing years of damage caused by a small minority of GOP politicians who parrot Nativist narratives demonizing immigrants.

It’s interesting Ann Coulter often mentions California, a case in point why the GOP has been losing the Hispanic vote! Ann Coulter’s pal John Tanton, with funding from the Nazi Pioneer Fund, led support for the anti-immigrant ballot proposition 187. Prior to Proposition 187, the GOP was very competitive in California statewide elections. However, trailing badly in the polls, Governor Pete Wilson jumped on the Proposition 187 bandwagon, gaining a temporary advantage among white voters, which drove Hispanic voters from the GOP. Proposition 187 passed, was soon struck down, the temporary advantage vanished, and ever since the California GOP has been uncompetitive in statewide races, with few exceptions.

Ann Coulter needs a new set of friends, because she keeps rehashing her Nativist pals’ narrative, which has cost the GOP dearly in recent years. If the GOP doesn’t show the John Tanton crowd the exit, the Republican Party will go the way of the Whigs.

Thankfully since the debacle in November, many Republican leaders woke up and smelled the ‘cafe con leche’, but will Ann Coulter? I doubt it…all of her rantings about Hispanics and immigration the last few years suggest otherwise, not to mention robust book sales of “Mugged.”

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Bob Quasius is the founder and president of Cafe Con Leche Republicans