La Opinión, News Report, Posted: Aug 27, 2012

In an open lettter to the Republican Party, Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos writes that the GOP has strayed from the party of Ronald Reagan and that in order to succeed in gaining the votes of more Latinos, it needs to take a page from its own history.

"Dear Republicans," he writes, "you are going to lose the Hispanic vote in the upcoming presidential elections."

But that isn't the worst part, Ramos continues. "I am writing to tell you that, unless you change several of your anti-immigrant positions, you could be condemned to lose the White House for many decades."

The latest Latino Decisions poll shows Republican candidate Mitt Romney with 22 percent of the Latino vote. Since Ronald Reagan, Ramos writes, any presidential candidate who gets less than one-third of the vote has lost the election. "Will things be any different this year?" he wonders.

George W. Bush received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, the largest percentage ever attained by a Republican. It was due in no small part to Bush's support for immigration reform. Yet it was Republicans in Congress who were responsible for blocking immigration reform, something that Latinos will not soon forget, Ramos writes.

Romney and his followers have taken a step backwards on the issue of immigration, Ramos writes, by opposing any attempt at legalization, including the DREAM Act. In fact, Romney has suggested that making life intolerable for undocumented immigrants could even lead them to "self-deport," another position Latinos will not soon forget.

Latino also know that the Republican Party is responsible for anti-immigrant state laws from Arizona to Georgia and Alabama, Ramos writes.

Republicans praise Reagan in their words, yet in their actions they distance themselves from his core ideals, he argues. Reagan was, after all, the president who approved amnesty in 1986. He told Latinos they were Republicans; they just didn't know it yet. Yet in recent years the GOP has become an enemy to immigrants.

The question now, Ramos writes, is what can the GOP do to avoid losing Latino votes for generations.