People fail to realize just how inclined Hispanics from most Spanish-speaking countries are towards Leftism, the countries with major cultural admixtures with the aboriginal populations, in particular (which is, as said, most of them). That cultural admixture combined with the neglect the Church had for proper teaching of the Faith in many of these countries in the past (affecting today's culture) has resulted in a situation where the fact that they are Catholic is irrelevant. It doesn't play the role people think it should in their societal interactions or in their politics. It presents a façade of social conservatism, but it is skin deep in most cases and manifests itself even less in politics. Outside of that realm, they aren't really conservative at all (as a whole, anyways; there are always exceptional persons).

I recall a good saying from an Austro-Hungarian nobleman (and late founding contributor and columnist for National Review), Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, from his article in The Freeman, "Latin America in Perspective," in which he states, "Christianity being only 400 years old in many parts of Latin America (where it is not Euro­pean Christianity transplanted, but superimposed!), it has af­fected only the blood and the hearts of the people, not the bones and the mind [he's speaking mainly about the Indians and mestizos here]...The Church has, in the past, concentrated too much on devotion (especially on Marian devotion) and not sufficiently on ethics, as Professor Fredrick B. Pike of Notre Dame pointed out in a brilliant paper. She did not preach energetically enough the natural virtues: respect for personal prop­erty, thrift, truthfulness, frugal­ity, responsibility for the family, chastity, cleanliness. (In certain Latin American nations 85 per cent of all children are illegitimate and get their entire moral educa­tion from benign grandmothers.) Piety is impressive in Latin Amer­ica, but the Mestizo who prays in mystical ecstasy, tears streaming down his face, may vote com­munist tomorrow or slit his neigh­bor’s throat from ear to ear." It's not an inaccurate way to characterize all but the most European parts of the populations in these countries (they have their Leftists, to be sure, but they resemble southern European Leftists more than the sort we are talking about here).

Republicans are foolish to think they've found a natural constituency in these people that just needs cultivation simply on account of their Roman Catholicism, because it represents orthodox Christianity and thus is inherently, as a Faith, conservative. The imprint is too shallow, and thus it does not influence how they vote a whole lot (but again, one can find exceptions, at least in the social realm, such as gay marriage, where Hispanics failed to support it as much as non-Hispanic white Leftists or the Left as a whole). Appeals to their assumed social conservatism will fall flat. Outside of that realm, they are most certainly not conservative and favour nationalism (for their own ethnicity), centralization, redistribution of wealth, government management of the economy and parts of society, the provider state, etc. Aiding them in things which will increase their political prominence, such as supporting amnesty, is suicidal for the Right. They will not only fail to appeal to their supposed social conservatism, but will also fail to receive anything but the most temporary and limited gratitude, and much of the credit will still be seized by the Left.

Article IV, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.