Sean Hannity now supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants

[Sbane]

This entirely rests upon the assumption that supporting amnesty would win Republicans support among Latinos, which simply isn't the case. All the polling of Latinos shows the primary reason for their inclination towards the Democrats is economics/welfare.

But I'm not sure it's just a matter of poverty. After all Asians and Jews are both wealthier then the average white and their isn't a large body of illegal immigrants that they identify with, yet they're also overwhelming tilted to the Democrats. I think it's fundamentally a cultural thing.

Their is no scenario in which Republicans will get much headway among Latinos. They clearly won't be moved by religious conservatism, they remained Democratic inclined even after Reagan implemented amnesty, and movement to the economic left by Republicans will simply result in a parallel shift leftwards by the Democrats. Amnesty would be political suicide.

I think you might be a troll, but I will respond anyways since you made a couple of good points.

First of all you are correct that a lot of Hispanics who vote Democrat do so due to economic reasons, but do 71% of them vote Democrat due to economic reasons? What the GOP needs to do to win is get that margin down to 60% Democrat. They won't win the Hispanic vote and they shouldn't need to.

This brings me to an even more important point. The Republicans need to win the Asian vote, especially the Christian Asian vote, by double digits. They really need to do that. That will immediately make them more competitive in states like Virginia and Colorado while earning them a few congressional seats in California. Jews and Hindu/Muslim South Asians are probably gone to Democrats though, including the funding source.....but the Republicans can't do anything about that. I think the Republicans will try to transition to a christian identity party as opposed to a white identity party so these people will still be left behind. That way they can still try and keep their white working class base. Of course I am not sure how good that strategy will be in the long term as younger whites are much less religious. At least that could be a good medium term strategy.

Amnesty with immediate right to vote should never be endorsed by the Republicans. They need to be smart and give them some special immigration status which makes them residents, but doesn't allow them a chance at naturalization for 10 years. But it's not just the need for amnesty that influences the Hispanic vote, it's also the racist laws like the one passed in Arizona. The Republicans really cannot do that!!!

[Sbane]

    Another question that isn't even discussed so far, is the overall direction of legal immigration, unrelated to the issues of amnesty, DREAM act etc.  Right now, year after year, about 1 million future Democratic leaning voters come to the US legally, rain or shine, bad economy or good economy, year after year. Amnesty issues is just a side issue to this overall issue of massive, unending legal immigration. 
    On this issue the Democratic Party is winning, and it is winning so substantially that even Romney, who was allegedly so far to the right on the issue, didn't have a problem with this amount of massive immigration.  The GOP has got to realize that importing huge amounts of Democratic leaning future voters isn't helpful to them.  The typical immigrant to the US just quite simply isn't a future Republican.  There's a reason the political left is so in favor of mass immigration, something along the lines of "if we don't like the results the electorate is giving us, lets vote for a new electorate", a sort of gerrymandering on an international scale.
    I'd be intrested in seeing an immigration grand bargain, with amnesty coupled with instituting the proposals of the Barbara Jordan commission from the 90's (appointed by Clinton) which called for less legal immigration, and also a modernization of the birthright citizenship idea to bring it more in line with how many other modernized Western Democracies handle it.

Republicans should encourage more high skill immigration and try and restrict immigration due to family ties beyond you closest relatives. This ensures that immigrants are fairly well off in society. The problem for the Republicsns then is to somehow appeal to them while still appealing to their rural base. These immigrants may be well off but they will most likely be living in large cities around America and will identify with that part of American culture. As you know, Republicans don't do so well even with the whites who live in these areas. The day the Republicans manage that, they will be able to get a larger share of the affluent immigrants who are living there. I am thinking specifically of Asians, but high skill immigrants from any part of the world would likely behave in the same way. American politics aren't decided on economics, they are decided on culture and immigrants are not going to embrace the culture of years past as Republicans do. Of course they will be more interested in the future. And the democrats are on that side which is why they are still doing well with whites living in and near big cities.