# Families separated at the Border - effects upon the Midterms? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 19, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/families-separated-at-the-border-effects-upon-the-midterms/816396 "2018-06-19T19:39:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/families-separated-at-the-border-effects-upon-the-midterms/816396/101 "2018-06-22T13:54:01Z")
I hesitate to make any predictions. However, I will say that several of my Facebook friends have been posting about how disgusted they are. And these are people who don’t generally post about politics. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/families-separated-at-the-border-effects-upon-the-midterms/816396/102 "2018-06-22T15:51:11Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Here in Texas, Cruz, Cornyn and Will Hurd (to name three) are downright _frightened_ at what this means to them. Their internal polling is so horrible that last week Cruz was all “the law is the law” and this week he (and Cornyn) introduced legislation to stop this. > > In addition, calls to their offices show extremely depressed and tired staffers who are tired of having to fend off frightened conservative Hispanics who are now wondering if they, or a family member, will be next There seems to be an assumption upon Republicans that Hispanics are going to be liberal Democrats. I talk to lots of Hispanics at work, mostly Central American, guys working construction and women working as housekeepers. They tend to be extremely family oriented ( one guy literally got tears in his eyes when I told him I didn’t have children ) and religious. And strongly anti-abortion and anti-gay rights. And they work hard at crap jobs and detest welfare. And frankly, a lot of them are extremely racist against African-Americans, they have a perception that they don’t take care of their children and don’t work hard (this is why they detest welfare). Really, they could be a tailor-made Republican constituency if the conservatives didn’t work so damn hard to alienate them. And there are lots of crap jobs that need filling. I’m not talking about working at Walmart or McDonalds. I’m talking about jobs in agriculture and food processing. Jobs that require working full days in blazing hot sun or in refrigerated facilities. Jobs that are gross and require handling blood and guts for 8-12 hour days. Jobs that literally stink, like cleaning fish. Jobs that, with unemployment at under 4%, Americans don’t want. > **[Wages rise on California farms. Americans still don't want the job](https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms-immigration/)** > > Trump's immigration crackdown is supposed to help U.S. citizens. For California farmers, it's worsening a desperate labor shortage. > **[At a Texas meatpacking plant, jobs Americans won’t take](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2018/03/05/at-a-texas-meatpacking-plant-jobs-americans-wont-take/)** > > The DJs at the Spanish-language radio stations gave warnings whenever Immigration and Customs Enforcement came around. “Be careful out there,” they’d say. “The relatives are… > **[Illegal immigrants help fuel U.S. farms. Does affordable produce depend on them?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-an-immigration-crackdown-who-will-pick-our-produce/2017/03/17/cc1c6df4-0a5d-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html?utm_term=.0d1676784962)** > > UNEARTHED | Undocumented workers do the jobs Americans don’t want. ( Jobs, not industries. A lot of the conservative “ there are NO jobs Americans won’t do” fall back on studies that show that most people working in, say, food processing - are native born. But that ignores the fact that their are crappy jobs in food processing and not so crappy jobs in food processing.) And now we have a whole bunch of people that are strong and determined ( based on the fact that they made it this far ) and really want those crappy jobs. Sounds like it could be made into a win-win except we don’t have a government that believes in win-win. Because what’s the point in winning if you can’t kick the losers in the head? So let’s restrict immigration to highly educated white people that are going to compete with YOUR college educated kids for those good entry level jobs. Then YOUR kid can gut fish because Norwegian immigrants took his entry level business administration job. Although he’d probably quit at lunch the first day. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/families-separated-at-the-border-effects-upon-the-midterms/816396/103 "2018-06-22T18:30:37Z")
I guess I should clarify my earlier comments. I don’t think the issue of separations necessarily dooms Trump’s presidency - he could still recover from that. However, his antics during the controversial policy’s life span and in the day or two since might be putting the republican majority in the House at great risk. The House was getting ready to deliver an immigration bill - now the president is telling the House to forget about it until next year. No doubt, a case of the president being a big crybaby for not members of his own party daring to urge the president to reconsider his tent city policies in public. So yeah, I guess referring directly to the thread title, while the effect on Trump 2020 is unclear, this controversy could indeed have some impact on the mid-term races. It’s bound to energize Latino voters for sure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/families-separated-at-the-border-effects-upon-the-midterms/816396.md?page=5)