There were conservatives in the audience at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in San Antonio last week, but they also appeared a bit stung by Mr. Perry’s recent promotion of tough anti-immigration laws, policy rhetoric that many Latino political leaders say he must moderate if he hopes to court their community outside Texas in any bid for the White House.
The governor has not officially announced whether he will run for president.
The same day Mr. Perry was sized up by more than 500 Latino officials from across the country, the group released updated statistics showing that the United States has an estimated 12.2 million projected Latino voters, an increase of about 26 percent from 2008’s figures. Texas has about two million of them.
Latino lawmakers say Mr. Perry’s push to prevent so-called “sanctuary cities” in Texas — local governments that prohibit law enforcement officers from inquiring into the immigration status of people they arrest or detain — resembles measures proposed in several states that are modeled on Arizona’s anti-immigrant law.
Mr. Perry’s language, some say, is a noticeable shift from his tone four years ago when in his inauguration address he said:
“Illegal immigration drains the resources of our schools, our hospitals and our law enforcement agencies. But I do not believe it is realistic to deport 12 million people already here illegally. We have to understand why millions of people come here, and why many more have died trying; it is for something as basic as the freedom to find a job and feed their families.”
Mr. Perry said then that Texas had “shown Washington what works,” specifically state-run operations to increase manpower along the Rio Grande. But he also said that a guest-worker program was necessary to “recognize the economic contributions of foreign workers.”
The failure to enact sanctuary cities legislation was one of the rare defeats Mr. Perry sustained in the 82nd Texas Legislature. The measure failed to pass twice, once during the regular session and again during the special session. Even so, Mr. Perry’s unwavering support for it could hurt him among Latino voters nationally, some national Latino leaders say.
“The support that he’s shown for the sanctuary cities bill is really counterproductive,” said Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the NALEO Educational Fund. “I remember vividly in 1994, when we had a governor in California, Pete Wilson, who got behind Proposition 187, which I would consider to be the forerunner to all these other measures. In California we would point to the governor of Texas who said, ‘Not in my state will we ever have Proposition 187,’ and that was George W. Bush. And now things have reversed.”
Although Mr. Perry does not talk about a guest-worker program anymore, some Texas lawmakers did champion such a program this past session. It failed to win a vote in committee, however, and was not one of Mr. Perry’s priority items.
Asked why the governor’s philosophy has changed, Mark Miner, his spokesman, said Mr. Perry was a leader intent on letting the Legislature do its work.
“The Legislature took the action they felt necessary,” Mr. Miner said. “The governor does not micromanage every single bill that goes before the House and the Senate.”
In any case, Latinos across the country warn against the assumption that their most important concerns revolve only around immigration. As with most voters, Latinos are also paying attention to what Mr. Perry has excelled at: job creation. To some, that may be enough to look past or even forgive his anti-immigrant stance.
“I think the most important issue for any presidential candidate is who has the best plan to improve our economy, who had the best plan to bring real jobs to the various states across the country,” said State Senator Anitere Flores, a Republican from Florida. “That’s the most pressing issue facing Hispanics, non-Hispanics and everybody else in between.”
Speaking of Mr. Perry’s NALEO address, Ms. Flores said the governor “did well on his message about the economy but he didn’t touch on the other issue.”
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