Republicans, Voter ID, Immigrants - One of these things doesn't belong with the others

Where, oh where was Republican-Senator-from-Minnesota-Wannabe Dan 'Doc' Severson, explaining how 'friendly' voter ID is to the immigrants meeting this week at the Brooklyn Park City Hall?  The reality is, Voter ID is quite hostile to immigrant voters - LEGAL immigrant voters.  It is not too friendly to legal natural born voters either.

 Could it be he wasn't there, because right wing sources like News Max lead with headlines like Voter ID Prevents Immigration Anarchy?  Immigrants terrify the right.
Ironically, the much vaunted claim that Voter ID laws would PROTECT the 'purity' (racial purity?) of elections from fraud by requiring ID, in states like Indiana did not do so.  Notably the Republican Indiana Secretary of State, Charlie White, elected in the 2010 election cycle, was convicted in February of this year on six felony counts of voter fraud, theft, and perjury. White used his state-approved photo ID, his driver's license, to vote. The Wikipedia entry on Charles 'Charlie' P. White noted:
Conviction of voter fraud

On February 4, 2012, a jury found White guilty of six of seven felony charges, including false registration, voting in another precinct, submitting a false ballot, theft, and two counts of perjury. He was acquitted on one fraud charge.^[18]

Did Photo ID prevent voter fraud? No. Did Photo ID help detect or prosecute voter fraud? No; voter fraud was discovered because Democrats in Indiana protested the election and registration, along with protections in place prior to Voter ID.  Voter ID did NOTHING to make that election free of fraud.  Voter ID would not prevent any other problems with voter fraud occurring, despite the political right insisting that Democrats steal elections through voter fraud - and unsubstantiated, unproven and totally specious claim. We do not have a problem with voter fraud 'stealing' our elections; not by Democrats, not by illegal immigrants, not by the elderly, not by former felons legally allowed to vote, or any other group that would be affected by Voter ID.
What Voter ID does is to make it harder for certain targeted groups to vote or register to vote.  In Texas, an estimated 600,000 (later revised to more than 800,000) minorities, mostly people who were Hispanic, would have been disenfranchised.  Given the reluctance of the legislators passing that legislation to be transparent and open about their legislation, it was arguably their intent to do precisely that.  From the Houston Chronicle, April 11, 2012 (my emphasis added in bold- DG):

AUSTIN - The U.S. Justice Department says there is substantial evidence that Texas' Voter ID law will discriminate against minorities.In court papers filed Wednesday, the department was explaining why Texas lawmakers should turn over their papers and communication regarding the law. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has argued that lawmakers should not have to reveal their internal deliberations.
But the Justice Department says no such privilege exists and that the evidence presented so far shows that 600,000 people will be unable to vote if the law is enforced. The department added that minorities would be impacted the most.
Currently Texas law requires that a voter present a registration card or a photo identification card to vote. The law would require everyone to present an official photo ID card.

I can't come up with a single reason that 'deliberations' about voting should not be public.  If there is ANY topic about which ALL deliberations should be open and public, voting would be at the top of the list, because it is so fundamental, so essential to representative government.
We do not have a problem with illegal immigrants voting in our elections; not in Minnesota, not in the nation.  What we DO have is a problem with LEGAL communities, like Hispanic voters, being denied the vote by right wing efforts to suppress voting.  And we have resistance to any non-European originating participation in the control and operation of this nation on the part of conservatives, as evidenced by white supremacist anti-non-European descended white people at conservative gatherings such as CPAC over a period of years, and behind legislation such as the anti-marriage equality amendment in North Carolina that just passed.  We have it in conservative movements such as the Full Quiver movement, where the term 'Demographic Winter' is used by the right wing extremists - the same people in many cases promoting Voter ID laws -  to create fears of white people in the U.S. and Europe losing their majority status:
"Demographic Winter is an argument being advanced by right-wing “pro-family” activists who claim that low fertility and falling birthrates in Europe auger a massive depopulation crisis that threatens the way of life of the white, Christian West. Particularly, they forecast a “death of Europe,” wherein hedonistic, atheistic and gay- and abortion-rights-friendly Europeans will bring about their own extinction by failing to have enough children to keep Muslim and Global South immigration at bay. Though there have been drops in fertility in Europe in recent decades, and it is a topic that numerous other organizations and governments and scientists are examining, the labeling of the phenomenon as a “Demographic Winter” apocalypse by the U.S.-based pro-family movement is a prelude to their offered solution: the revival of large, patriarchal families where the woman is a stay-at-home mother to a full quiver of children, and the father is a benevolent leader of his wife and children. In this way, coalitions like the World Congress of Families have neatly been able to co-opt a population trend, turn it into a crisis, amplify its threat and raise nationalistic support by drawing on centuries-old religious and racial conflicts, and provide the reactionary solution."
This overlaps right wing 'natavism' which seeks to exclude immigrants, and to preserve the U.S. for the existing white majority by excluding immigrants in every way possible from participation.  Nativism is defined by wikipedia, here a handy, very simple explanation, as :

the political position of demanding a favored status for certain established inhabitants of a nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants.^[1] Nativism typically means opposition to immigration and efforts to lower the political or legal status of specific ethnic or cultural groups because the groups are considered hostile or alien to the natural culture, and it is assumed that they cannot be assimilated.^[2]

The Republican party, and those who are running for office, or who hope to run for office with the party endorsement are NOT friends of recent immigrants, particularly those who are people of color or non-European ethnic minorities.

From the Star Tribune:

Immigrant group opposes photo ID proposal

• Article by: ALLIE SHAH , Star Tribune
• Updated: May 15, 2012 - 9:13 PM

Hoping to build opposition to the proposal to require Minnesota voters to show an approved photo ID, a group of African leaders in the Twin Cities northwest suburbs held the first in a series of meetings Tuesday night.

The forum, which drew about 50 people, was held at the Brooklyn Park City Hall and organized by the African Immigrant Services, Think Again Minnesota, the League of Women Voters, and TakeAction Minnesota.

"We want to provoke a conversation. We want to start here," said Abdullah Kiatamba, executive director of African Immigrant Services.
He said Tuesday's meeting will be followed soon by another meeting with local Latinos, Asians and other minority groups who could face barriers to voting should the ID proposal pass.
Last month, the Minnesota Legislature voted to approve a constitutional amendment proposal on this fall's ballot that would require voters to show a photo ID, create a new system of "provisional balloting" and end election day "vouching" for voters without proof of residence.
The issue now is headed to voters to decide on Nov. 6 when general elections are held. Republican legislators in favor of requiring voters to show a photo ID have called it a common-sense measure to tighten up Minnesota's voting system and verify voters' identities. DFLers opposing the amendment have argued the requirement would do more harm than good. They say it wouldn't prevent the small amount of election fraud, but it may prevent certain voters from exercising their right to vote.
Kiatamba says the goal is to build a coalition in the northwest suburbs to build momentum between now and November.
Mohammed Dukuly, a Liberian immigrant and an imam at Masjid An-Nur in Minneapolis, said he is concerned about the intentions behind the requirement. "Why was this legislation passed? That's what we should be looking at," he said.
The Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center area is home to a large concentration of immigrants from Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and several other African countries.

Someone can urinate on your leg, and try to tell you it's raining, which is what the right is doing in how they characterize Voter ID, but it still is what it is.  From the Think Again Minnesota web site, which clearly connects the red dots:
Who is behind voting restrictions?

The Wealthy 1% that's behind Minnesota's Voter Restriction Push A report by TakeAction Minnesota, describes how Minnesota’s wealthiest financial institutions and their executives, lobbying groups, and PACs together with the Chamber of Commerce pooled funds and shared resources to enable a Republican takeover of the state legislature in 2010. The Chamber of Commerce, the Minnesota Business Partnership, and Minnesota Forward donated hundred of thousands of dollars to candidates who won seats in the MN House and Senate. These Senators and Representatives are the ones that passed the referendum for a MN Constitutional Amendment that would prevent hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans from casting a vote. Dan McGrath, executive director of TakeAction Minnesota, called the Amendment to Restrict Voting “An intentional effort to reduce the voting rolls in order to help corporate conservatives further expand their wealth and power.” 15 of the sponsors of the Amendment to Restrict Voting Rights are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of wealthy corporations and legislators that wrote model Voter Restriction legislation introduced in states throughout the nation. Read Brenton Mock's article: "The Wealthy 1% that's behind Minnesota's Voter ID Push." You don't have to be a genius to connect the dots; the right is anti immigrant.  Voter ID is anti immigrant.  Voter ID is a tactic to put conservatives in power and keep them there, even if it violates the most essential freedom of others, even if it violates the most fundamental, foundational basis of our nation.  It is transformational, but not in a good way.