On Immigration Reform: Let Them Stay A few numbers jumped out of the new Quinnipiac poll today that suggested David Brooks was right when he said that Republicans in the House may be committing "political suicide" by refusing to support a compromise Senate bill on immigration reform that does virtually everything they claim to want. In the poll, 66 percent say illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay, including 54 percent who say they should be given a path to citizenship - the concept that seems to be driving House Republicans mad with outrage. That number has been pretty steady in Quinnipiac's polling over the last eight months or so, as has the much smaller number of Americans, 28 percent, who think we should just deport all those millions of undocumented people. Even a majority of Republicans think the foreigners who came here illegally to pick our crops, mow our lawns and clean our houses should be allowed to stay. Forty-one percent say they should be given a path to citizenship. With Republicans tanking among Hispanic voters, you'd think they might be interested in the poll's finding that 71 percent of Hispanics support a path to citizenship, along with 66 percent of African-Americans. There's not even a solid plurality for deportation among the most reliable Republican voters - born-again Christians. Fifty-one percent say they should be allowed to stay, including 39 percent for a path to citizenship, with 41 percent saying they should not. But there's another number that Republicans may be looking at more closely than what Americans say they want, and that is their voting intent. Forty-seven percent overall said their Senator or representative's vote on immigration reform would not make a difference about whether they would vote for that person. That was 52 percent among Hispanics. If your primary purpose in life is to get re-elected, rather than govern effectively, then people's views on issues don't matter if they vote for you anyway. That's especially true when you consider how many House members are in districts gerrymandered to guarantee their job security.