Final Debate Before Super Tuesday Held Thursday, February 25th at the University of Houston

CNN and Telemundo Host Five Remaining Republicans in what is the Only RNC-Sanctioned Debate Purported to ‘Focus on Latino Issues’

This Thursday, the final five candidates competing for the Republican nomination for the presidency will convene at the Moore’s Opera House of the University of Houston for a debate moderated by Wolf Blitzer, co-hosted by CNN and Telemundo. It is the only Republican National Committee sponsored debate this primary season to be aired in Spanish as well as English. In a press release from the network it was stated that the debate would also focus on Latino issues.

So where exactly do the candidates stand on Latino issues? What constitutes a Latino issue? For Republicans this primary season the top two issues are illegal immigration and the Southern border.

The five remaining candidates are Ben Carson, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. So in no particular order, let’s take a look at their stance on these two issues.

This is John Kasich. He’s an Ohio Governor running for the Republican nomination. His claims to fame are his awesome arm gestures akin to landing a plane, his economic progress in his home state, expanding medicare via the Affordable Care Act and affection for him among liberals. Kasich is often regarded as the most moderate candidate remaining in the Republican field.

A quick jaunt over to ontheissues.org summarizes Kasich’s views on immigration to be: “It’s a silly argument to ship 11M illegals back to Mexico;” “Focus of immigration should be to keep families together;” “Latino immigrants will continue to play critical role in U.S.;” so translated, Kasich is fairly moderate as far as views on immigration are concerned. Also, rather than shifting position to accommodate for Trump’s shifting of the conservative base to the right, Kasich has positioned himself as the moderate alternative in the Republican field: “Its a silly argument to ship 11M illegals back to Mexico is in direct response to Trump’s (and then Cruz’s) claims to do the same.

This is Dr. Ben Carson. He is a retired former head neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Teaching Hospital, and claims that American politics are an easier challenge — his poll numbers may disagree.

Ontheissues.org describes Carson as contending that many immigrants are criminals from Iraq, Somalia and Russia; we have the means but not the will to build a wall along the Southern border and should secure the border by other means — for example, drones; it is the moral low road to take advantage of cheap labor without a path to citizenship, yet there should be no path to citizenship as it would be unfair to current and past immigrants. After reading the quotes and summaries provided, I have concluded what most mainstream media sources can only suggest at: Ben Carson has pretty much no idea what he’s talking about. His suggestions are factually questionable as well as being convoluted and confused in a philosophical or subtextual sense.

This is Marco Rubio. Some have compared him to a Latino Republican Jesus. Opinions on his in the conservative base differ widely, but sage voices like Bill O’Riley echo the sentiment that if not now, Rubio will at some point become president. Trevor Noah has described him as a hard 6 out of 10.

Rubio has often been the pariah to be slammed by fellow front-runners Trump and Cruz for his somewhat moderate stances on immigration and apparent willingness to reach across the aisle under the banner of comprehensive reform. You know, because those aren’t things some large swaths of the Republican base want their candidates doing.

Ontheissues.com incriminates Rubio even more than his competitors do on the stump or the debate stage. Rubio advocates for sealing the border first before seeking comprehensive reform, as defines this security as 90% apprehension and 100% surveillance. Current illegal immigrants would be given a path to earn a green-card and no path to citizenship, and would be barred from being able to earn this visa for 10 years. Rubio also advocates executing reform on a federal level in order to avoid the complications inherent in 50 separate sets of laws regarding immigration.

This is Raphael “Ted” Cruz. He may be Kevin from the office. He may be a Canadian. As far as he’s concerned, he’s definitely running for president. The crew over at Trusted are currently battling the pretty wide perception that he ‘suffers from a mental condition called being a liar.’

Will Ferrell as George W. Bush remarks in his SNL 40th anniversary cold open that it’s shocking both Rubio and Cruz, as the sons of immigrants, hate immigrants. And as Ted is trying to adopt more of a trusTed persona, he would probably not describe his platform in so many words. Ontheissues.com describes his platform stances as: illegals are a dangerous entity to low-income Americans, vehemently opposes a path to citizenship, the border patrol needs to be tripled in size, and police and border agents need broader legal authority and protections — there should be boots on the ground and there should be a wall.

This is Donald Trump. He seems to be winning the Republican race. I know or know of crowds of intelligent people who are absolutely baffled by this notion. Regarding immigration, Trump changed the conversation entering this political primary season by first bringing back the notion of building a southern border wall, as well as later claiming that if elected, he would be making the state of Mexico pay for that wall. To this day there is extensive confusion on how this proposition is at all feasible.

This picture to the left was originally captioned on the U.K.’s Telegraph website as: “Donald Trump: the Mussolini of America.” Indeed, there is much discussion of Donald Trump’s platform being fascist or at the very least, fascist-like. If we take fascism to inherently imply a philosophical axiom of xenophobia, these commentaries may not be so far off the mark. Ontheissues.com depicts Trump’s immigration stance record as being severe (putting it politely): ship millions of Mexican immigrants back to Mexico; build a wall, (including a triple fence and the constant use of predator drones) for which Mexico will pay, along the southern border; a significant number of Mexican immigrants are: criminals sent by the Mexican government, drug dealers and rapists.

I hope this brief summary of information regarding these candidates’ stance on the top Latino issue in the hours leading up to this final Republican debate to air before Super Tuesday purported to focus on Latino issues serves as a quick primer for the debate airing at 8:30ET on CNN.