The harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric adopted by some of the Republican White House hopefuls risks robbing them of support not just from Latinos, but also from Asian Americans.
An unprecedented high number of candidates - 17 - are courting the Republican Party’s nomination for the November 2016 presidential election. The state-by-state selection process begins in January.
Experts cite the attacks on immigrants and the proposal by Donald Trump and others that children of undocumented migrants born in the US should be denied citizenship. The 14th amendment of the US Constitution guarantees citizenship to babies born in the US.
Latino voters, and to a lesser extent Asian voters, are expected to play a crucial role in 2016.
Focusing attention on immigration by emphasising border security, “anchor babies”, “birthright citizenship”, and the like rather than comprehensive immigration reform will offend both Asians and Latinos.
The construction tycoon Trump is setting the pace of this rhetoric, which has brought him to the top in the polls. But others are playing along.
In 2012, 73% of Asian-Americans and 71% of Hispanics voted to keep Democrat President Barack Obama in the White House.
His Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, obtained only 27% of the Latino vote and 26% of the Asian-American vote. During the campaign, Romney invited undocumented migrants to resort to “self-deportation”.
Experts believe that, should the Republican Party insist on its anti-immigrant rhetoric, it could well lead them to lose the 2016 election.
Also, Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is enormously popular among Asian Americans.
Many of the most hotly-disputed states in the 2016 election (Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina, among others) have a fast-growing Latino and Asian-American population.  If the Republican Party can’t win about 40% of the Latino and Asian-American vote in these states, its chances of winning are very slim.
Immigration is in fact shaping up to be a main theme of the 2016 race. The Latino vote could well hold the key to the White House.
Former first lady and former secretary of state Clinton, who is trying to remain the favourite in the race for the Democratic nomination against a surge of support for Bernie Sanders, advocates immigration reform to grant undocumented migrants a route to US citizenship. She is keen to highlight the differences between herself and Republican candidates so she can win over Latino voters.
During the state-by-state voting that begins in January and will determine the candidate, Republican presidential hopefuls need to stay on the right of the political spectrum, since a tough discourse on immigration resounds with the party’s grassroots.
Trump has promised that, if elected president, he will deport all illegal immigrants from the country, revoke the immigrant decrees that Obama implemented in November to grant some relief to many illegal immigrants, and make Mexico pay for the wall along the common border.