The Illegal Immigration Bomb
The Washington Post points out another issue that has the serious potential for damaging the Democrats - illegal immigration. While election results were very mixed on this issue with a number of people who ran on anti-illegal immigration platforms failing to be elected, there were also a number of ballot initiatives that passed that indicate that this is still a hot button issue for voters.
But when it comes to immigration, things are never easy. In the days after the election, Democratic leaders surprised pro-immigration groups by not including the issue on their list of immediate priorities. Experts said the issue is so complicated, so sensitive and so explosive that it could easily blow up in the Democrats' faces and give control of Congress back to Republicans in the next election two years from now. And a number of Democrats who took a hard line on illegal immigration were also elected to Congress.
"It's not without its challenges, for sure," said Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "You've got opposition in both parties. You still have restrictionists in the Republican Party. You have Democrats who've been reluctant to move on any kind of worker program."
Butterfield predicted that lobbyists and Democrats have less than a year to move legislation that could put some 12 million illegal immigrants on a path to legal residency, before the looming 2008 elections make a deal politically impossible. And analysts say the fate of President Bush's proposal to create a temporary worker program for 200,000 immigrants is in doubt, with labor's allies in charge.
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Major challenges lay ahead. The Mexican border remains a sieve where an estimated 100,000 immigrants sneak into the country every year. Conservatives in the House, and some Democrats, want the border sealed with manpower, fencing and technological gadgets before they will even consider guest workers.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes increased immigration, said Democrats should implement an enforcement program first. Anything else might be political suicide.
"The Democrats need to get their majority reelected in the next two years," Krikorian said. "My sense is that the Democrats have grown up enough to know they can't get reelected trying to get everything they want."
This issue will not go away and needs to be addressed. This one really is a potential bomb for the Democrats if they repeat the mistakes made in 1986 and 1996, as the article points out. I said a long time ago that once the border was secured a lot of other things become possible and negotiable. Before the election, both parties blew the chance to make that a cornerstone. The 700 mile fence is pretty much a band-aid and people knew it. So now the Democrats have a chance. The question is, will they act on it?
Immigration Reform | Gaius Monday, 13 November , 2006
By syn, Monday, 13 November , 2006 @ 6:54 am
Now that the Dems are in charge of illegal immigration look for the rhetoric to change from attack words like ‘nativist Americans who hate brown people’ to feel good words like ‘protecting our borders from terrorists’
Dems rule by feel good soundbytes, not hard choice substance.
By Quilly Mammoth, Monday, 13 November , 2006 @ 7:20 am
I think that this is yet another article that points out that the Democrats didn’t win so much as Republicans lost the last election. On issue after issue we see the MSM reporting that the Democrats better tread lightly. But with the constant noise coming from the nutroots and Pelosi backing Murtha what are the odds that the centrist coalition that Rahm Emanuel worked so hard at will triumph?
I’m forcasting an exact reversal of the current situation in 2008. Republicans take back Congress and Her Thighness wins the Presidency.
By Arlo, Monday, 13 November , 2006 @ 2:05 pm
The Democrats would be smart to let Bush have to come forward on illegal immigration and if he really wants to do anything, make him provide the Republican votes. I don’t see it happening.
The public sees a lot of people they think are most likely illegal immigrants and the government is doing nothing about it. Why? People don’t understand it and its not benign. Look up the Adrienne Shelley Murder in Manhattan - perfect encapsulates the problem as the public sees it.