There are small signs of awareness among Republican Party officials that they need to reframe immigration as a jobs and wages issue if they want to win.

For example, Sen. Jeff Sessions and former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum — who nearly won the 2012 GOP nomination — criticize mass immigration for creating a wage-reducinglabor surplus that hurts American wage-earners.

That’s economic jargon for describing how the annual arrival of 1 million immigrants and 800,000 guest workers drive down wages while competing for jobs against the 4 million Americans who turn 18 each year.

“It is basic supply and demand,” Cotton said.

Americans workers and families are suffering because President Barack Obama’s lax immigration enforcement policies, and mass legal immigration, are driving down salaries, Cotton said.

“African Americans have a higher rate of unemployment, unfortunately, than whites,” he said. “They’re hurt by mass scale legal immigration and illegal immigration,” he said.

“Many Hispanics, especially in Arkansas, are naturalized citizens, and they are hurt… [and] are now paying the consequences,” he said.

“Lots of Democrats and independents are now on my team, saying they’re going to vote for me, in part, because they know I’m serious about stopping the border crisis,” he said.

[GOP Shifts Amnesty Debate To Jobs and Wages, by Neil Munro, Daily Caller, August 17, 2014]

Of course, this only hastens the inevitable showdown with the donors who own the GOP and who are willing to kill off conservatism if it means ensuring a supply of cheap labor.