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By Zoltan L. Hajnal February 27 at 11:00 AM

Some Republicans are so opposed to immigration reform that they are willing to withhold funding for Department of Homeland Security just to fight back against President Obamas executive order on immigration. To many observers, this in politically foolish. In their minds, the countrys increasing racial diversity makes it risky to oppose immigration reform.

This argument makes some sense. Immigrants and other minorities tend to care a lot about immigration and they tend to favor the Democratic Party on the issue. Recent polls indicate that Latino approval of President Obama went up markedly after he issued his executive order on immigration.

So why dont Republicans get it? The answer is that Republicans opposition to immigration reform actually represents a winning strategy, not a losing one. Heres why.

Republicans win or lose largely depending on white voters. Whites still make up the vast majority of voters some 75 percent in 2014 and whites tend to favor the Republican Party by large margins. Republican congressional candidates garnered 60 percent of the white vote in 2014. All told, 89 percent of all Republican votes in 2014 came from white voters. Put simply, the Republican Party doesnt really need the minority vote.

Moreover, whites also increasingly care about immigration. A new book by Marisa Abrajano and myself reveals the significant impact immigration has had on white party politics.

We find that white views on immigration are correlated with their partisan identity and their electoral choices. In the last midterm, for example, 75 percent of Americans who felt that most illegal immigrants should be deported voted for Republican candidates. By contrast, only 35 percent of those who favored a chance for undocumented immigrants to apply for legal status favored Republicans. As I show in research with Michael Rivera, the relationship between attitudes on immigration and white vote choice holds even after accounting for the other factors that we think affect how people vote.

But does this correlation imply causation? To answer that more difficult question, we looked to see if attitudes on immigration at one point in time predicted changes in partisanship later on. The answer is yes. To be sure, the effect is not large but even small individual shifts in partisanship, once repeated over the course of decades, can become massive electoral shifts over time.

In another study, Marisa Abrajano, Hans Hassell, and I showed that reporting on immigration was associated with shifts in the overall share of white Democrats and white Republicans in the electorate. It does, and to a startling degree. The more media coverage of immigration is negative, the larger the share of white Republicans in the electorate.

By any measure, fears of immigration are driving many white Americans to the Republican Party. And, indeed, the Republican strategy on immigration appears to have been successful. Republicans now control the House and the Senate, the governors office in 31 states, and two-thirds of the state legislatures. They are winning the political war.

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Monkey Cage: Opposition to immigration reform is a winning strategy for Republicans

MIAMI, FL - FEBRUARY 09: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) speaks with the media after delivering remarks during the graduation of small business owners from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program held at the Freedom Tower at Miami Dade College on February 9, 2015 in Miami, Florida. The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program helps owners in the Greater Miami area by providing them with greater access to business education, financial capital and business support services. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Joe Raedle, Getty Images

Marco Rubio has already apologized to the right wing base for his one-time support of comprehensive immigration reform, but two years later at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Republicans are still bringing up the immigration "mistake" he made in the Senate.

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"You went forward with your immigration proposal, and at the end of the day you said, 'It didn't work. I tried...it's not going to work,'" Fox News' Sean Hannity said in a sit-down interview with the Florida senator at the conference.

Rubio insisted that his original plan was, in fact, "the single biggest lesson of the last two years."

"Well, it wasn't very popular. I don't know if you know that from some of the folks here," Rubio said in a joking aside.

The immigration plan that Hannity referenced was a 2013 immigration reform bill that Rubio played a key role in pushing. The legislation would have tightened border security, reworked the national visa program, and offered a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

It's not exactly the sort of pitch that plays well at CPAC, the right wing's Super Bowl equivalent -- even two years later when the senator is considering a 2016 presidential run. And amidst the threat of a DHS shutdown because of President Obama's executive actions on immigration, it's a knock against Rubio's conservative bona fides.

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Marco Rubio answers for his failed 2013 immigration plans -- again

TaskForceTV: The Road to Immigration Reform
Politini interviews Stacey Long Simmons of the LGBT Task Force and Carlos Padilla, of United We Dream about LGBT Immigrant rights.

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TaskForceTV: The Road to Immigration Reform - Video

Obama Pushing Immigration Reform Charles Krauthammer O #39;Reilly

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Obama Pushing Immigration Reform Charles Krauthammer O'Reilly - Video

The agency in charge of implementing immigration policy, among other duties, is scheduled to run out of funding Friday if the GOP-controlled Congress can't agree to a funding bill.

READ: DHS impasse down to the wire in Congress

"Instead of trying to hold hostage funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which is so important for our national security, fund that and let's get on with actually passing comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said at the event, aired on Telemundo and MSNBC, and hosted by Jos Daz-Balart, an anchor on both channels.

The meeting was announced in the days following a ruling last week from a federal district court judge that temporarily blocked Obama's executive action on immigration.The White House said it was a chance for the President to reach the Hispanic community, taking questions from online and members of the audience.

During the event, the President called on voters to make immigration reform a successful social movement -- and a key issue in the next presidential election.

"Every major social movement, every bit of progress in this country, whether it's been the workers' rights movement or the civil rights movement or the women's rights movement, every single bit of that progress had required us to fight and to push and you make progress," Obama said. "You don't get everything right away, and then you push some more."

The President also defended the legality of his executive action, but said that passing comprehensive reform in Congress should be the end goal. When asked about the failure of Congress to pass legislation he laid the blame squarely on the GOP.

"You do a disservice when you suggest that no one was doing anything, then you don't know who was fighting for and against you," Obama said. "The Democratic Party has been consistent. A few Republicans have supported it but let's be clear the reason why we don't have a bill is because [House Speaker] John Boehner wouldn't call a vote."

Obama offered praise for 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush.

"I appreciate Mr. Bush being concerned about immigration reform," he said. "I would suggest that what he do is talk to the speaker of the House and the members of his party."

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Obama defends immigration policy in Telemundo town hall