Immigrants Flocking to GOP Districts

Republican congressional candidate Max Burns, right, talks with business owner Howdy McTee during a campaign stop Friday Sept. 29, 2006 in Millen, Ga. Burns is running against Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., in the 12th District. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton) (Stephen Morton - AP)

DALTON, Ga. -- It's a slice of Americana: children playing soccer on a sunny Saturday morning, their parents cheering them on. But at these soccer fields, the dominant language is Spanish, the food truck sells authentic Mexican and few of the adults are eligible to vote.

Along the sidelines, America Gruner lugs a plastic tub filled with blank voter registration forms. Gruner has worked for months to register Latinos, inspired by an immigration debate that has become shrill to many Hispanics. Most politicians in this Republican stronghold in north Georgia offer little sympathy.

"They haven't, at least openly, supported us when we needed it," said Gruner, a legal immigrant who has registered about 100 voters so far.

Republican congressional districts are becoming magnets for immigrants _ legal and illegal _ but GOP lawmakers are not exactly embracing their new constituents.

Of the 50 House districts nationwide with the fastest-growing immigrant communities, 45 are represented by Republicans. All but three of those lawmakers voted for a bill that would make illegal immigrants felons.

Overall, GOP districts added about 3 million immigrants from 2000 to 2005, nearly twice the number that settled in districts represented by Democrats, according to an Associated Press analysis of census data.

The numbers help explain why illegal immigration is such a big issue in rural Georgia, eastern Pennsylvania and in suburbs throughout the United States.

They also help explain why House Republicans passed five bills on border security in the weeks before Congress recessed for the Nov. 7 elections. Only one measure, calling for a border fence, has become law.

Max Burns, a Republican congressional candidate in eastern Georgia, typifies the hard line.

"No citizenship, no federal benefits, no guaranteed access to this country because they broke the law to come here," Burns says.

His tight race against Democratic Rep. John Barrow illustrates the GOP strategy in many congressional campaigns.

Barrow has voted for nearly every Republican immigration bill approved by the House in the past year. He voted to make illegal immigrants felons and to erect the border fence. He said he "opposes amnesty in any form."