Most, but not all Republicans are friends of the effort to fight illegal immigration. As a party, the Republicans have the best record of securing the borders. Democrats as a party want wide scale amnesty in order to increase their voters base among low skilled workers. Libertarians have ideologically supported open borders for decades. Now, I do not want you to think that there are not some Democrats or Libertarians who do not recognize that the flood of illegal immigrants is a legitimate law and order issue that is neither oppressive nor insensitive to the needs to foreign citizens. Yet, the fact remains there are very few cases where the Democrat or Libertarian officials/activists are better on the border issues than the Republicans.
With that said, not all Republicans are on the right side of the American people. There is a freshman Republican State Representative who spoken out forcefully against state measures to fight illegal immigration and is leading the fight against requiring a basic understanding of English before taking a Drivers exam. There are veteran committee chairmen who are carrying the legislative water for industries and local governments opposed to the requiring of legal residential verification programs like E-Verify.
What can be done? One of the best arena’s to fight ideological battles within a party is at the local conventions. Georgia Republicans are having their County conventions in March, District conventions in April, and their State convention in May. The current party leaders will take resolution suggestions before these conventions. Long time conservatives will dominate the resolutions committee’s. If strong resolutions against illegal immigration are approved it will send a message that the grassroots opposes any moderation on this issue. We also need to identify those handful of elected Republicans resisting the will of the people on this issue.