 Former U.S. secretary of commerce Carlos Gutierrez during a 2011 Republican gathering in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables, Fla., to improve the party's outreach to Hispanic voters. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) |
Republicans for Immigration Reform
A new super PAC spearheaded by Charlie Spies, the co-founder of the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, and Carlos Gutierrez, George W. Bush’s former commerce secretary and head of Romney’s outreach to Latinos, is seeking to push Republicans to work to change the country’s immigration policies. On Nov. 20th, Spies filed with the FEC to start the new group, Republicans for Immigration Reform. Gutierrez, a Cuban American who came to America with his parents to escape the Castro regime at age 12, said in an interview with CNN that he was upset with actions Romney took during the campaign that alienated Latinos, and was “shocked” with the conference call in which Romney claimed the Obama campaign gave “a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they could get to vote for them,” including “the Hispanic community.” “What they [Latinos] sense is that we don’t welcome them,” Gutierrez said during a January 2013 interview. “We have to be the party that celebrates immigration.” “If we get this right, the 21st century is ours,” he said. “And if we get it wrong, shame on us.” |
