Texas Republicans have made a change to their official party platform: they have called for a national guest-worker program. The question we have to ask ourselves now is, are they doing this for the right reasons, or is this simply a ploy to gain the votes of their Hispanic constituents?

On one hand, even if there is no actual movement regarding the national guest-worker program by the Republican Party of Texas, it at least shows some sort of effort at reaching out to Hispanic voters. However, just because a party makes a statement in their platform, that in no way guarantees that there will actually be any follow through, and that is incredibly unfair to those that would be affected positively by the utilization of a guest-worker program. 

The Texas Democratic Party believes the latter. Rebecca Acuña, the Director of Communications for the TDP, made this statement regarding the Republicans bold move:

“Republicans believe that immigrants can work in our fields but not live in our neighborhoods. The GOP has been hijacked by some of the most anti-Hispanic anti immigrant factions Texas has seen. Their platform wants to repeal birth-right citizenship and eliminate the Texas DREAM Act. The Republican Party is attempting to throw a bone at the immigrant community.” 

As much as we as voters, and more importantly human beings, would like to see the Republican Party actually follow through with this new statement, I don’t think anyone should hold their breath if it comes down to actually implementing the guest-worker program. 

On a more national level, the U.S. Supreme Court continues to debate over certain parts of Arizona’s questionable immigration-enforcement law, and Texas is keeping close watch on any developments being made. Texas has attempted to pass legislation that is similar to Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 – the infamous sanctuary city law in 2011. 

If Texas is attempting to pass such a volatile and unconstitutional piece of legislation regarding immigrants, what makes us think that guest-workers would really be welcomed with open arms?