May 12, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 33
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I've written before on Congressman Heath Shuler's claim that John McCain has quietly intervened to discourage House Republicans from forcing a debate on immigration. I've argued that the claim is implausible, since 175 out of 198 Republicans have signed a discharge petition designed to force a debate, compared to just 10 Democrats. If McCain is discouraging Republicans from signing the petition, he's obviously not being very effective. McCain's staff also denies the claim. Further, the debate would/will be very painful for Democrats. So Democratic leaders who want to avoid the bill have reason to try and throw up some dust.
With this prologue, Roll Call today reports that several House Democrats claim at least one Republican refused to sign on because of McCain's opposition:
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who was negotiating the package among disparate groups of Democrats and Republicans along with Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), said a senior Republican came to him and Emanuel and told them that McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, didn’t want to deal with immigration this year.
But read the rest of the piece, and you see that the Democrats weren't talking about the Shuler border enforcement bill per se; they plan to use support for the Shuler bill to force a new debate over comprehensive immigration reform:
A week before the March recess, House Democrats thought they were close to getting a deal on an immigration package that would include temporary visas for most illegal immigrants, expanded visas for temporary workers and border enforcement provisions...
Hispanic Caucus members said they had not heard of McCain’s involvement one way or the other, but Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said McCain’s recent backtracking from his support of comprehensive immigration legislation in favor of border security first has been “most unhelpful...”
Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joe Baca (D-Calif.) blamed GOP leaders, not McCain, for supporting discharge petitions rather than working with Democrats on a larger deal...
So McCain's team says that he didn't intervene, while Democrats continue to claim that he did. In either case, it seems that the Democratic leadership is dead-set against a simple up or down vote on Shuler's enforcement bill. Instead, if the discharge petition gets to 218 signatures, we'll be treated to a comprehensive reform debate.
Congressman Heath Shuler (D-NC) is claiming that John McCain has been pressing Republicans not to sign onto the discharge petition for his legislation to enhance immigration enforcement. In considering the likelihood that this is true, let's look at the reality of the situation:
A discharge petition needs 218 signatures to bring a bill to the floor. The petition was filed just 4 legislative days ago -- on March 11, with March 14 being the last day to add signatures before Easter recess. In those 4 days, Republicans got 172 signatures (out of 198 Republicans in the House). In the same time, the Democrats got 9 signatures for the petition (out of 49 cosponsors of the legislation). We know there's heavy pressure from senior liberal Democrats not to sign the petition.
So the petition has been signed by 90 percent of all Republicans in the House, and by less than 20 percent of all its Democratic sponsors. Shuler seems to be more concerned with CYA and blame spreading than with getting the bill to the floor.
The Politico reports on a dustup on the House floor between Representatives Heath Shuler (D-NC) and Debbie Wasserman-Schulz (D-FL):
As told to us, Wasserman Schultz asked Shuler if he'd sign the [GOP dischage] petition. Shuler said, "You're damn right I would sign it, it's about time we did something on immigration," adding that "we need to get our heads out of the sand."
The diminutive Wasserman Schultz yelled that Shuler he was doing this for "political cover."
And Shuler said, "I wouldn’t have worked on this for damn near a year for political cover."
I've written on this several times lately -- including one Democratic representative comparing immigration officials to gestapo agents. It's beginning to look like a Greek tragedy -- one the Democrats can foresee a mile away, but are unable to avoid. That's because there's a basic tension between red state Democrats who want to boost re-election prospects, and liberal Democrats who regard the whole topic as race-baiting.
With Republicans preparing to force a debate on the Shuler bill, things may be coming to a head:
Mindful of the splits among Democrats, House Republican leaders met Tuesday night to discuss a potential discharge petition aimed at forcing Pelosi to allow a floor vote on the Shuler measure, first introduced last November. A final leadership go-ahead could come as early as Wednesday, with the goal of beginning to collect signatures next week and thereby elevating the issue prior to the spring recess beginning March 14.
The strategy is designed to force Pelosi’s hand on immigration, assuming whatever option the speaker chooses will pose problems in the fall. “That’s going to be a problem for us, because it is such a volatile issue,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.). “I don’t think the Republicans are interested in good policy. They’re interested in good politics right now, and they think the discharge is good politics.”
The Politico reports that it's unclear that Republicans will get the signatures they need to force a debate -- at least right now. But painful as the debate might be, Speaker Pelosi ought to consider getting this debate out of the way. After all, if a discharge petition falls short today, it isn't going to go away as the pressure of election day draws closer. Do House Democrats really want to let a difficult issue like this fester, if it may come back to haunt them later?
I've written before that House Democrats seem headed for a painful immigration debate that exposes the fault lines between the moderates elected in 2006 -- who want to protect their seats by passing legislation to get tough on illegal immigration -- and the lliberals and latinos who favor 'earned legalization.' Well, it looks like the depth of the split is already on display in the subcommittee that funds immigration enforcement:
...House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Price, D-N.C., and ranking member Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said ICE faces difficulty identifying all illegal immigrants among the millions of people held in about 5,000 federal, state and local jails across the country. Price said the jails hold about 600,000 criminal illegal immigrants but at its current pace ICE will take up to five years to deport them all...
"It's not acceptable to have people who we know are capable and willing to harm our citizens ... to be back out on the street," he said...
Tensions mounted during the hearing when some Democrats questioned how ICE conducts work-site raids and how the agency handles children and people who need medical care. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., accused ICE of acting like Nazi Germany's Gestapo when conducting raids. Myers defended ICE employees, saying she would not tolerate the accusation. "We are not the Gestapo," she said, interrupting Farr...
Congratulations Sam Farr, on being the first to prove Godwin's Law. But perhaps you ought to direct your anger at Chairman Price, who seems eager to see ICE get tougher on the illegal immigrants who are the target of worksite enforcement. Your message might get a more receptive hearing if the man who funds ICE wasn't sending the opposite signal.
Chairman Price offers an instructive lesson of how strong the feeling is about illegal immigration right now. He represents the research triangle of North Carolina, and taught at Duke. He has a career 'F' grade from the anti-illegal immigration group Numbers USA, and does equally poorly on the FAIR scorecard. But in the current political climate, even he wants to be seen as doing more to fight illegal immigration.
This incident presages what will likely be a nasty and unavoidable fight within the party later this year.
I suppose they may be waiting for a more politically-opportune time. Once Senator McCain clarifies his stance -- specifically, would he oppose any 'comprehensive' bill that may pass the House as a result of this debate -- they will better understand the political calculus:
Rumors to the contrary, Rep. Brian P. Bilbray of California says Republicans have no plans to force Democrats into voting on an immigration enforcement measure written by one of their own.
Rep. Heath Shuler , D-N.C., has introduced legislation to strengthen border security and force employers to verify that their workers are legal (HR 4088). But the measure includes no provision to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, an idea that most Democrats say must be part of any immigration overhaul and that Republicans deride as “amnesty.”
Consequently, Shuler’s bill is more popular with the GOP than with his own party — 90 of its 136 cosponsors, including Bilbray, are Republicans.
Immigration lobbyists and interest groups suspect Republicans might try to force a vote on the bill by collecting signatures on a discharge petition.
If a majority of the House (a total of 218 Members) signs a discharge petition, the leadership is required to schedule a prompt vote on the measure. The vote need not be simply up-or-down, the House would likely consider amendments and alternatives. So if/when Republicans decide it's in their political interest to have an immigration debate, they could quickly get about 200 signatures. They would then pressure moderate Democrats, red-state Democrats, and swing seat Democrats to sign as well.
The 'right' time to press for a vote would probably be shortly before the election -- when there's the greatest potential to either force a wedge between latinos and the Democratic party, or to show targeted Democrats as 'soft' on immigration. If the Democratic leadership is wise, they won't wait for a discharge petition to force the debate on them, but will hold it when it suits them.
From Roll Call:
“There is the formation of a consensus,” said Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who said he’s seen a draft bill. “We’re looking at some kind of a compromise. It’s still comprehensive in nature but not to the extent we would like...”
But Baca said the key piece for Hispanics is a five-year visa for illegal immigrants who can prove they have a job. The visa is well short of past bills that would grant permanent legal status, which critics decried as “amnesty.”
The immigration debate last year showed that this is a huge political minefield for Democrats, but it may be unavoidable for them. There are a number of moderate Democrats who think that they are vulnerable for re-election this year on the issue of illegal immigration, and they feel compelled to push for further measures to deter it. Their legislative vehicle -- so far -- is Congressman Heath Shuler's SAVE bill, which is cosponsored by dozens of moderate Democrats, and which has already got him in hot water with House liberals.
But the strategy seems to be to join Shuler instead of trying to beat him. If they can come up with a politically-salable compromise that moves the country toward 'earned legalization,' then they'll take the half-a-loaf. However, House Republicans with whom I've spoken say there's no chance that they'll compromise on a measure that can in any way be characterized as amnesty (or 'amnesty lite').
This is a dangerous debate for Democrats. It splits their caucus and raises the profile of an issue that may bite them in November. By raising it during the presidential campaign, they may force their candidates to take a position that's bound to anger part of their constituency.
It also makes things more interesting on the Republican side, as presumptive nominee John McCain has previously supported this approach. Having now declared that there needs to be a consensus that the borders are secure before addressing legalization, how will he vote if such a measure passes the House?
If Democratic leaders like Robert Byrd and David Price speak for many of their colleagues, it may not matter much if a 'pro-amnesty' candidate wins the presidency this year:
Nodding to public ferment over illegal immigration in a tough GOP election year, the administration announced Thursday — before the official Feb. 4 release of the federal budget request — that it would seek $12.1 billion for those efforts, up from about $10.2 billion enacted (PL 110-161) in fiscal 2008.
“In past years, Congress has consistently increased funding for border security and immigration law enforcement above the president’s request to meet ongoing security needs,” said David E. Price , D-N.C., chairman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee...
Robert C. Byrd , D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations panel, said the request was “long overdue,” adding, “We cannot continue to attempt to secure our homeland on the cheap.”
Votes on these proposals are likely to generate conflict among Democrats in the months ahead. Latinos and Democratic liberals have clashed with moderate Democrats they see as pandering to anti-immigration sentiment. When the House and Senate consider appropriations bills this year, there are sure to be votes on the increases proposed by the president. In an election year such as this one, these votes could prove problematic for Democrats, and perhaps for Republicans as well.
While we've covered it here, the attempt by Congress to defer implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative has gotten surprisingly little attention. The WHTI requires all citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Bermuda to have a passport or other accepted ID that establishes the bearer’s identity and nationality, to enter or depart the United States from within the Western Hemisphere.
Yesterday DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that while Congress has blocked full implementation of the initiative, the administration is narrowing the range of documents that can be used to gain entry at land ports, and reducing the number of cases in which an individual can simply assert citizenship to enter without ID:
As you also know, Congress has mandated a delay of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative full implementation until June of 2009. But we are, nevertheless, in the intervening time taking some reasonable and very important measures to eliminate what I consider to be unacceptable vulnerabilities in our land border. And that includes eliminating oral declarations in all but extraordinary circumstances, and reducing the number of documents that will be accepted at the border.
The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative fulfills one of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. The commission noted that it's impossible to know who is entering the United States when so many forms of identification are accepted for entry, with most being easy to fake. Given that Congressional leaders cite implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations as one of their signature achievements of 2007, it's stunning that they moved to block full implementation of the initiative.
Chertoff has spoken in the past on the problem and the need for reform:
First of all, individuals can orally assert their U.S. citizenship. That means basically saying, hi, I’m a U.S. citizen, and in many cases we allow that to be sufficient unless the agent becomes suspicious. And even when a Customs and Border Protection officer asks for a document, these same individuals can present up to 8,000 different forms of travel documents from birth certificates to identification cards to drivers’ licenses at our land and seaports of entry...
It's simply incredible that more than six years after the 9/11 attacks, anyone can enter the U.S. by asserting that he or she is a citizen, and fooling a border guard. It's even more incredible that Congress has attempted to block the administration from remedying this--when they ought to be screaming for it to be fixed more quickly. The reform that DHS is about to implement is a step in the right direction, at least.
Jim Geraghty reports on the addition of Jim Pinkerton to Governor Huckabee's team.
James Pinkerton, a columnist for Newsday, fellow at the New America Foundation, and veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush campaigns, has signed on with the Huckabee campaign.
Regular readers will recall that Jim Pinkerton's latest project is an effort to get Republican candidates at the federal level to commit to completing a border fence by a date certain. Not surprisingly, Huckabee has already pledged to complete the border fence promptly upon taking office.
Look for the pledge to be featured more prominently in the Huckabee campaign in the days ahead.
In the last few years, Republicans in Washington have tried to act--or if you're a cynic, appear to act--to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. Shortly before the 2006 midterm election, the Republican-led Congress approved 700 miles of double-layered border fence, only to see the current Congress largely gut the measure in 2007. Other legislation has funded enhanced border security. But as Congress has done a two-steps-forward-one-step-back border enforcement dance, the public seems to be becoming impatient for more.
Public opinion polls show that as the war in Iraq has faded somewhat as a priority for voters, a range of domestic issues are rising in importance--among them illegal immigration. In yesterday's voting in New Hampshire for example, exit polls showed that illegal immigration was a priority for the state's Republican primary voters (and illegal crossings aren't exactly a big problem in the state). Congressional Republicans have been saying for months that illegal immigration is invariably the top issue at townhall meetings--all across the country.
What can Republicans in Washington do to address these concerns?
Newsday columnist and Fox News contributor Jim Pinkerton has one possible answer: pledge to complete the double-layer border fence within six months of the convening of the next Congress. The pledge is explained and publicized at his fencebydatecertain blog. Early backers of the pledge include Congressman Walter Jones and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
Pinkerton's effort--if successful--will force Republican candidates to take a firm stand on the border fence, and implicitly on tough enforcement in general. In a session yesterday at the Heritage Foundation, Pinkerton analogized it to the 'no new taxes' pledge pioneered by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and, like Norquist, Pinkerton would make the pledge a litmus test for Republican candidates at the federal level. Given the strong feelings among core Republican voters, there might even be pressure to incorporate the fence pledge into the Republican candidate's platform--or in any agenda that Congressional Republicans may promise in 2008.
Read also Joe Mansour's post at TechRepublican.
The Wall Street Journal reports that it is becoming more and more likely that millions of taxpayers will see processing of their 2007 returns delayed due to Congress' inability to pass a fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax:
Some lawmakers predict Congress probably won't take action until next month. If so, that could spell major trouble, Treasury and IRS officials warn. That's because it takes time for the IRS to reprogram its computerized processing systems to reflect last-minute changes made in Congress, says Terry Lemons, an IRS spokesman. How long? "Up to 10 weeks after the bill is signed into law," he says. "The AMT is not simple, and these are not simple changes to our systems."
"As we look at the upcoming 2007 filing season, the potential exists for us to see a problem of greater magnitude than anything we have faced in the past," said Linda Stiff, the IRS's acting commissioner. In a recent speech, she warned that the processing of as many as 50 million returns "would be delayed..."
Congressional delays could affect people who file on paper as well as the growing numbers of people who file electronically. A record 57% of all federal income-tax returns filed earlier this year for the 2006 tax year were zapped electronically to the IRS. That was up from 36% in 2002...
What's more, "millions of other taxpayers not involved in AMT returns may also have their refunds delayed because of the backlog in processing other returns," says Ms. Stiff, the acting IRS commissioner.
"We are worried," says Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president, taxation at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Congress "is really putting the IRS in a box on this issue. That's going to make a lot of taxpayers upset."
Sure, Congress has been unable to pass a simple tax fix, but at least they've found time to hold 40 votes on Iraq.
Your tax dollars at work.
Yesterday I pointed out that the lefty bloggers seem to regard Congressman Jerry McNerney as a weak-minded victim of General David Petraeus's 'Jedi Mind Trick'. Today it seems that Brian Baird was also seduced by the Dark Side:
It’s becoming apparent that these people are being bombarded with such bad information, so many “experts” whose only expertise seems to be at abject failure, that they can’t see the patently obvious any more. Watch the YouTube above. Baird’s constituents are sputtering with rage as he sits there and rubs snake oil all over his head and says “see, really, it makes the hair grow, just like the guy said. You just watch.”
Just a few months ago the left was enraged that George Bush stuck to the same plan in Iraq regardless of changing facts. Ultimately, of course, the lack of success in Iraq led him to switch commanders and plans, with positive results. Yet it's the left which now calls on their leaders in Congress to ignore the results and stick with the same plan--regardless of facts.
More importantly, can Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid risk allowing General Petraeus to testify on the results of Operation Phantom Thunder in open session? How many simpletons are there among Congressional Democrats, who might be fooled as easily as McNerney and Baird?
 Merkel holds a copy of the Turkish daily Hurriyet. Last Thursday in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted the country’s second "Integration Summit," which saw representatives attend from various immigrant associations representing the more than 7 million foreigners currently living in Germany. But several of the major groups representing Germany's 2.6 million-strong Turkish community decided to boycott the high-level gathering. Further, they threatened to no longer participate in such meetings unless the German government repealed new, more restrictive immigration reform legislation. Chancellor Merkel was quick to condemn the Turkish boycott and strongly rejected any attempt to coerce the German government into revoking the bill. At the Summit, she also promised to provide €750 million ($1.1 billion) in new funding for various integration measures, including German language and culture courses and sports activities for youth.
Commentators from Germany’s leading newspapers were divided over whether the Turkish groups were justified in boycotting the Integration Summit or whether this was just further evidence that Germany's Turkish community has no real interest in integration.
From the Turkish perspective, the most controversial aspect of Germany’s immigration reform package--which was passed by both houses of parliament earlier this year but has yet to be signed into law by the German President--concerns new provisions restricting the ability of foreigners to have their foreign-born spouses move to Germany permanently.
First, foreigners in Germany will have to wait until their spouses are at least 18 years old before they can bring them into the country. Second, all spouses will be required to demonstrate basic German language skills before they are allowed to move to Germany. In particular, these two new provisions attempt to clamp down on a very disturbing practice that has prevented the successful integration of Germany’s growing Muslim community for far too long. In Germany (like in other European countries) Muslim immigrants have “imported” their young brides--who generally come from rural areas, have low levels of education, speak no German, and are sometimes only 15 or 16 years old--through arranged marriages. In this context, German authorities are also increasingly concerned about forced marriages involving young women and girls from Turkey and other Muslim countries being married against their will to foreigners in Germany. Obviously, the line between “arranged marriages” and “forced marriages” can be very blurry.
In her bestselling 2005 book Die Fremde Braut (The Strange Bride), Turkish-German sociologist and women’s rights activist Necla Kelet provided a powerful account of the plight of young Turkish women sent to Germany to marry men they've never met before and to live in a country where they do not speak the language. Kelet’s book and similar publications by other Turkish-German authors like Seyran Ates and Serap Cileli are based on interviews, sociological studies, as well as partly on autobiographical material. For obvious reasons, though, it is very difficult to obtain and assess the true extent of the problem as Turkish women in Germany are often too afraid to speak out and seek legal protection in response to abuse.
But Kelet’s book, in particular, has triggered a barrage of criticism. Several Turkish-German academics and journalists have accused her of overstating the extent of forced marriages by taking isolated incidents out of context and making generalized statements about the Turkish population in Germany at large. The influential Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, which has a circulation of more than 500,000 in Germany alone, accused the authors of insulting Turkish women, making the Turkish community look bad, and reconfirming German prejudices against Turks by making generalizations. But Germany’s respected conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, responded that Hurriyet’s actions amounted to a smear campaign.
Continue reading "Germany Reforms, Immigrant Groups React" »
Go over and read how Ed Morrissey's innocent question to Sen. John McCain in a media conference call led to a significant new hurdle for the Senate immigration bill. This is the end result:
House conservatives are ready to stop the Senate immigration bill in its tracks with a potent procedural weapon should the contentious measure win passage in the upper chamber.
The trump card conservatives may hold is a constitutional rule that revenue-related bills must originate in the House. The Senate immigration measure requires that illegal immigrants pay back taxes before becoming citizens, opening the door to a House protest, dubbed a 'blue slip' for the color of its paper.
This has happened before. In fact, it happened less than a year ago, with the same piece of legislation. The Senate included a provision in its version of the immigration bill to require the repayment of back taxes. This led the House to 'Blue Slip' the measure, forcing the Senate leadership to find a procedural work-around.
The Senate is not entirely without moves of its own that it can make. The House has passed a few tax bills this year that the Senate might 'amend' by adding the immigration bill. This would create a significantly broader piece of legislation--but it would technically satisfy the Congressional stipulation that revenue bills originate in the House of Representatives.
Alternately, leaders from the House and Senate might strike a bargain in advance, and have the Senate strip the tax provisions before sending the measure to the House--with the understanding that the House would add them back in later.
Lastly, Don Wolfensberger--a former Staff Director for the House Rules Committee and a procedural whiz--wrote last year ($) that the House can vote to ignore the violation--more or less:
If the Senate, either intentionally or inadvertently, originates a revenue-raising bill, any Member of the House has the option of calling up a 'blue-slip resolution' (named after the color of paper it is printed on after passage) to send the measure back to the Senate. The resolution gets immediate consideration as a matter of constitutional privilege, is debatable for an hour and is not subject to amendment (though it may be tabled or referred to committee).
If the political will exists, there are several ways for the Senate to eliminate this problem and expedite passage of the measure. However, for legislation that's none too popular already, this is a problem its proponents ought to have tried harder to avoid.
Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute explains why our immigration system needs a complete overhaul -- not just a fence.
Hotline reports:
It's official... AP has called TX 23. Ex-Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez is coming back to Congress. With 94% of precincts reporting, Rodriguez leads GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla 55-45%….
Frankly, not only is Rodriguez's victory a mild surprise (Bonilla fell just 2 points short of avoiding the runoff in November), the size is a shock….
Bonilla was a strong supporter of the tough-on-immigration measures sponsored by the Republicans. He voted for the construction of the 700-mile border fence, and supported Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s bill penalizing workers who hire illegal immigrants.
Based on the election results, it appears Latino voters – even among his previous supporters – turned on him and supported ex-Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D). In Maverick County (95% Hispanic), Bonilla won a miniscule 14% of the vote. By contrast, Bonilla carried the county in his comfortable 2004 win, and President Bush even performed respectably here in 2004 when he won 40%.
Val Verde County (76% Hispanic) has traditionally been a solidly pro-Bush, pro-Bonilla county. Bush carried it with 59% of the vote in 2004. But Bonilla barely carried it, only winning 51% there against Rodriguez….
Here’s what George Will had to say a few months back on the possible long-term political damage to the GOP:
So, safely assuming that the House-Senate conference fails to produce a compromise acceptable to both houses, when Congress returns to Washington after the Labor Day recess, the House may again pass essentially what it passed in December….
The cost of this, paid in the coin of lost support among Latinos, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority, may be reckoned later, for years. Remember this: Out West, feelings of all sorts about immigration policy are particularly intense, and if John Kerry had won a total of 127,014 more votes in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, states with burgeoning Latino populations, he would have carried those states and won the election. But for now, the minds of Republican candidates are concentrated on a shorter time horizon -- the next 4 1/2 months.
Will also wrote:
[C]onservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English…. [I]t would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France. The House-passed bill, making it a felony to be in the country illegally, would make 11 million people permanently ineligible for legal status. To what end?
I support tough border security, but the House GOP’s immigration stance was a mistake – on political and policy grounds – in my view. They would have had a lot of leverage going into conference with the Senate on immigration to get something done. I suspect they would have even won a phased comprehensive bill where border security would have come first followed by the phasing in of the other measures contained in the Senate bill. It was a missed opportunity.
Have Rep. Tom Tancredo face off against Mark Udall for the Allard seat. From the Denver Post:
The buzz in U.S. Senate circles is that Wayne Allard might honor his pledge to serve just two terms and retire to that new home he and his wife, Joan, are building in Jackson County….
Allard is in the minority in Congress for the first time since he was elected in 1997 and word is he isn't too keen on the situation. The list of Republicans who might run in 2008 if Allard does not includes U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, former Reps. Scott McInnis and Bob Schaffer, and outgoing Gov. Bill Owens.
Regardless of the GOP ticket, Rep. Mark Udall plans to run and will make a formal announcement sometime next year. His campaign coffers now hold $1.2 million.
Speaking of immigration, CNN has just released a presidential poll of GOP voters. The result: Giuliani, 33%, McCain, 30%, Gingrich, 9%, and Romney, 9%. Rudy and McCain both hold the president’s view on immigration; Newt and Romney agree on immigration and oppose the president’s position. Yet, the polls consistently show Giuliani and McCain with a large share of the GOP vote. Does this suggest that the views of rank-and-file Republicans on immigration may be more varied than those on talk radio and in the blogoshere? Perhaps.
His comments on immigration, the party leadership races, and 2008 may be found here.
Rudy hasn't wavered in his support for stronger border security plus broader immigration reform. From the Times Leader (PA):
He recommended that political leaders “do immigration reform” before the 2008 Presidential election cycle begins because it should be easy for both sides to agree on such legislation. “I think that would restore people’s confidence in government (to) get something done,” he said….
Turning to immigration, he said “Illegal immigrants have some constitutional rights,” and the authority of local governments to legislate on immigration issues “depends” on whether the laws infringe upon those rights. He supports “strict” border security, but “at some time, (the government should) allow for people who are working, who are legitimate, to make them come out of the underground.”
“We need to know everybody in the United States,” he said, “because a larger underground network makes it easier for terrorists to hide in America.”
Here's a novel take on the election results that I couldn't disagree with more. And here's an alternative view: Burns lost because of Jack Abramoff. Chaffee lost because heavily Democratic R.I. loathes the GOP national leadership. Corruption has hollowed out the Ohio GOP, which, in turn, impacted the campaign of Mike DeWine – and that of Ken Blackwell for that matter. Sen. Allen didn’t run much of an ideological campaign, except on immigration where he ran many ads against “amnesty” – a campaign tactic that also failed fellow Virginia GOPer Jerry Kilgore, who lost his gubernatorial election bid to Tim Kaine. Santorum didn’t lose by 18 points because of the “Gang of 14” or the Senate's failure to rubber stamp the House immigration bill.
In the House, the swirl of corruption cost a number of seats, as did immigration. Speaking of, today’s Wall Street Journal notes that among Hispanics, “some 27 percent voted Republican – an 11-percentage-point drop from the prior mid-term election in 2002.” Of course, hovering over all this – the ethical issues, the profligate spending (though, to his great credit, John Boehner strongly opposed his party's pork binge), and the immigration mess -- is the war in Iraq. One of the very few people to fully grasp the deteriorating situation, early on, was the senator from Arizona. The bottom line: to recapture our majority and keep the White House in 2008, Republicans should assess the election results based on reality, not delusions.
Don't be surprised to see former Majority Leader Dick Armey on the debate stage, perhaps in South Carolina this May. Armey knows full well he won’t win the nomination. But, as one knowledgeable source told me, he is seriously considering jumping in for the national exposure and for the chance to duke it out with Newt Gingrich. It’s no secret that Gingrich may run and that Armey isn’t a big admirer of the former speaker. The libertarian Armey, never a fan of the Iraq War which Gingrich supports, has reserved his strongest criticism for “enforcement-only” Republicans, along with the Christian Coalition and evangelical leader James Dobson. Armey strongly supports the president’s call for comprehensive immigration reform and a guest-worker program; Gingrich is steadfast against it. After Armey recently criticized the GOP for having “pandered to Christian evangelical conservatives,” Gingrich fired back on Fox News: “When Dick Armey looks at Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel and huge tax increases he's going to love those evangelicals.”
So, buckle up. If Gingrich (who I believe is more likely to run than Giuliani) and Armey enter the fray, the GOP debates should be just as entertaining as those on the other side of the aisle. Stay tuned…
Sen. Joe Lieberman today (via Hotline on Call):
If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out [of Iraq] by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England…. It will strengthen them and they will strike again….
“I’m worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don’t appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us — more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War
[T]hese terrorists certainly don’t distinguish based on our party affiliation? They want to kill any and all of us.
I’m sure Harry Reid and all the rest who have heartily endorsed “Bring Them Home” Lamont won’t be happy with Lieberman. Good for Joe.
Last night, in an interview with Fox's Bill O'Reilly, Rudy Giuliani again put himself squarely in the president’s camp on immigration reform. The mayor is for tough border security, but he has also made the case in recent speeches that real reform must include a guest worker program and a “path to citizenship.” On Fox, Giuliani argued that comprehensive reform is not only practical but also aides in fighting crime and thwarting terrorists. Some highlights:
GIULIANI: Yes, yes. National Guard short-term solution makes a lot of sense. Increasing the border patrol.
O'REILLY: In the long term.
GIULIANI: Long-term over a period of time would be the permanent way to do that.
But you've got to seal the border. And you've got to do it with personnel. And you've got to do it with technology. You've got to have both.
And we have to know who's in the United States. We need to have information about who's in this country. And then you have to have a way in which people can regularize themselves as well. I mean, you need to get people out from under the table.
O'REILLY: So you would give them a pathway to citizenship?
GIULIANI: I would say -- this is a classic thing where you've got to do both, carrot and stick.
O'REILLY: Yes, but you got to do -- I think the stick first.
GIULIANI: You've got to do both.
O'REILLY: You know, you stop it and then back.
When you were the mayor in New York, illegal immigration rose in this city tremendously. I mean, you can't get a cab now with an American in there.
GIULIANI: But crime declined immensely….
GIULIANI: The Immigration and Naturalization Service would only deport 1,500 to 2,000 a year. So I said to myself I have 398,00 illegal immigrants because the federal government is not going to do anything about this. It can't. So I had to figure out how do I deal with it so that I regularize them, so that I.
O'REILLY: So how did you do that?
GIULIANI: They don't commit crimes. They don't - well, we made sure that their children were allowed to go to school for which we were criticized. But if I didn't do that, I would end up with children on the streets. If I had just said well, illegal immigrants can't have their children in school. And we tried to make their lives reasonable.
O'REILLY: How about city services?
GIULIANI: It would have been.
O'REILLY: Did you give them city money?
GIULIANI: Sure, we did. If they were necessary services. We allowed them, for example, to report crimes.
O'REILLY: Without being -- asked what their status was.
GIULIANI: Because we wanted the criminals who were committing the crimes.
O'REILLY: Right.
GIULIANI: A criminal can beat up an illegal immigrant today. He can beat you up tomorrow. So we need the.
O'REILLY: So you took the practical approach to it?
GIULIANI: But you've got to take a practical approach to it. There are 12 million illegals in this country. We got to stop illegals from coming in. And a tremendous amount of money should be put into the physical security that's needed to do that.
People and technology. At the same time, you've got this tremendous number of people who are below the table. As long as you don't know who they are, as long as you can't get them to come forward, you can't identify them, you can't photograph them, you have to figure out who they are, then you have a dangerous situation.
O'REILLY: It's interesting.
GIULIANI: Now terrorists can hide in that group.
O'REILLY: Oh, absolutely.
GIULIANI: And criminals can hide.
I wonder if the Speaker will invite President Bush or Rudy Giuliani to testify at these (scroll up) field ”hearings”? Both oppose the House-passed immigration bill and support comprehensive reform.
(The Manhattan Institute's Tamar Jacoby seconds, in the Washington Post, an argument Rudy Giuliani has been making to audiences. She writes: “The point is obvious enough: We need to take the busboys out of the equation (by means of a temporary worker program) so that Border Patrol can focus on the smugglers and terrorists who pose a genuine threat. And, just as urgent, we need to find a way to bring the 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country onto the right side of the law, creating incentives for them to come forward, then registering, screening and, as long as they stay here, keeping track of them.”)
Post on April 5, 2006:
Opponents of President Bush's immigration position like to claim the high ground on national security. They rightly claim that we must secure our border, especially in a post 9/11 world. But at the same time many also contend that a guest-worker program would weaken U.S. security. Well, Mayor Giuliani argues that 9/11 is a reason why we need such a program.
From today's Chicago Sun Times:
Giuliani wants to 'regularize' immigrants to improve safety:
Turning 11 million illegal immigrants into criminals is not the way to secure the nation's borders or prevent another terrorist attack, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Tuesday.
The way to do that is to "regularize," document, photograph and fingerprint immigrants to drive what Giuliani called "this vast underground" above ground....
"The president is right to support a guest-workers program," Giuliani said. "If we recognize it, document it, photograph it and know who and what it is, then we can concentrate our attention on the people who aren't coming in to be guest workers but are coming in to bomb us, or coming in to sell heroin or cocaine or to launder money.
"By having this vast underground, we are much more insecure," said Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney. "And by trying to do the impossible, we're much more insecure. If you have 11 million people in this country who are illegal or undocumented, and you have similar numbers coming in through this underground, that is a much, much more dangerous situation for terrorists to exploit, drug dealers to exploit and other criminals to exploit."
...On Tuesday, Giuliani acknowledged that the immigration issue has divided his Republican Party and the nation. But that's partly because it's being conducted "as a theoretical debate," when immigration is "a fact" of life, he said.
"People want to come to the United States. That is a good thing. We want people to want to come to the United States. That means we're still the shining city on the hill. We're still the place [where] people see greater opportunity, greater freedom, a better way to create a better life for themselves and their families," he said.
Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, who did a good job while in office, had a lot to say Wednesday night on Hardball. He’s opposed to the president’s immigration position, which he has every right to do. But in explaining why, the Virginia Republican totally mischaracterized what’s in the Senate-passed bill -- a bill that basically tracks with the president’s view on immigration reform – and he forgot to mention that fellow Virginia GOPer Jerry Kilgore recently lost his gubernatorial election bid after making his Gilmore-like position on immigration the centerpiece of his campaign. Gilmore also commented on Sen. Lieberman's primary challenge from the anti-war Ned Lamont:
Question: What does this tell us governor that an anti-war candidate could beat Senator Joe Lieberman?
GILMORE: Well, I always say that when your enemy is destroying himself, don’t interrupt, right? But I think this: I think that it really is an indication as we have seen over and over, that we start to begin to reward people who are breaking away from party loyalty.
I think it’s becoming more and more of a characteristic with Democrats and Republicans. We reward people who break away from party loyalty.
Excuse me, but shouldn’t we applaud a Democrat who has stood with a Republican president on a war because he believes national security trumps party loyalty? A fierce anti-communist, Democratic Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson often bucked his McGovernite party on foreign policy and defense issues. Was he wrong to do so? Despite deep Republican reservations, Senator Dole backed President Clinton in the Balkans. Was he wrong too? Sorry Governor, but you’re way off base on this one.
Today's Wall Street Journal has an insightful editorial on the House Republicans’ assault on what is really the president’s immigration plan – a plan that Mayor Giuliani believes strengthens our national security. “The Kennedy bill” is how some House members refer to the Senate bill. But I don’t remember all those House Republicans who voted for the “No Child Left Behind Act” refer to that legislation as “the Kennedy bill.” He, of course, was a primary Senate backer of the act. The Journal editors argue that the House enforcement-only position is bad policy and bad politics. They write:
Even if all of this somehow works this election year, the long term damage to the GOP could be considerable. Pete Wilson demonized illegal aliens to win re-election as California Governor in 1994, but at the price of alienating Latino voters for a decade. The smarter Republicans--President Bush, Karl Rove, Senator John McCain, Colorado Governor Bill Owens and Florida Governor Jeb Bush--understand that the GOP can't sustain its majority without a larger share of the Hispanic vote. Making Mr. Tancredo the spokesman on this issue is a surefire way to make Hispanics into permanent Democrats.
All this brings me to the comments of Don Goldwater, who is seeking the GOP nod to run against Arizona governor Napolitano. His recent remarks, covered in a local paper, concerning his illegal immigration plan are now being picked-up in the Hispanic media and likely soon by national media outlets. From the Arizona Republic:
Goldwater promised to put undocumented workers in a “tent city” at the border. “It’s my intention to take illegals and put them down at the border in a tent city and use them as labor to build the fence and clean up the desert they are tearing up,” said Goldwater, who didn’t offer any specifics for his plans that some construe as unconstitutional.
Republican leaders should roundly and categorically denounce his plan before it unfairly tars the party of Reagan. They may also want to take a second look at the immigration proposal put forth by conservative Mike Pence of Indiana, who, as the Journal notes, offers Republicans “a way out of their political mess.”
Conservative columnist George Will isn't a fan of the House-passed immigration bill. He believes it’s bad policy and bad politics. A few months back, he criticized “faux conservatives” for trying to pin the “amnesty” moniker on the Senate-passed bill.
[C]onservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France. The House-passed bill, making it a felony to be in the country illegally, would make 11 million people permanently ineligible for legal status. To what end?
And in today’s Washington Post Will argues that the GOP risks inflicting long-term political damage if it stumbles on immigration.
So, safely assuming that the House-Senate conference fails to produce a compromise acceptable to both houses, when Congress returns to Washington after the Labor Day recess, the House may again pass essentially what it passed in December….
The cost of this, paid in the coin of lost support among Latinos, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority, may be reckoned later, for years. Remember this: Out West, feelings of all sorts about immigration policy are particularly intense, and if John Kerry had won a total of 127,014 more votes in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, states with burgeoning Latino populations, he would have carried those states and won the election. But for now, the minds of Republican candidates are concentrated on a shorter time horizon -- the next 4 1/2 months.
Democrats swung for the fences in the Calf. 50 race but came up empty. The media would have pumped a Donkey victory for days. That said, I’m not sure how to interpret Bilbray’s narrow win. He overcame the Duke Cunningham corruption albatross by emphasizing the need for tough border enforcement. But he did so in a majority Republican district and against an opponent who committed the cardinal sin of politics -- making a major gaffe in the closing days of the campaign. In the end, Bilbray ran a better campaign, which means Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the party's top strategist for taking back the House, shouldn’t get too cocky about the prospects of a Speaker Pelosi – for now at least.
Today's Hotline reports on an internal RNC poll showing strong support for comprehensive immigration reform:
RNC senior adviser...Matthew Dowd urges Republican Nat'l Committee members to favor a "comprehensive" solution to immigration, which the public believes is "unifying -- not polarizing."
Dowd: "Furthermore, majorities of Hispanics back it. Therefore, it is imperative for the Republican Party to talk about immigration effectively and comprehensively and demonstrate leadership on this vital issue as we move toward the mid-term elections."
Dowd's memo says that an internal RNC poll conducted by Jan Van Louhuzen finds that "overwhelming support exists for a temporary worker program. 80% of all voters, 83% of Republicans, and 79% of self-identified conservatives support a temporary worker program as long as immigrants pay taxes and obey the law."
More, from the RNC internal poll: "When voters are given the choice of other immigration proposals, strengthening enforcement with a tamper-proof identity card (89% among all voters, 93% among GOP), various wordings of a temporary worker program (the highest at 85% among all voters, 86% among GOP), and sending National Guard troops to the border (63% among all voters, 84% among GOP) score the highest among both all voters and Republican voters."
Also: "Voters don't consider granting legal status to those already here amnesty."
Dowd concludes: "Finally, when discussing immigration reform, tone and language are extremely important. To continue to grow the party, we must conduct this debate with civility and respect for our nation's heritage -- as the President has said, we are both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. That is why the American people favor a balanced plan that secures the border, improves enforcement, enhances immigration avenues AND deals compassionately and equitably with those who are already here."
In addition,
Voters don't consider granting legal status to those already here amnesty. Seventy percent (70%) of voters say illegal immigrants who have put down roots in the U.S. should be granted legal status after they go to the back of the line, pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and have a clean criminal record; just 25% say that would be amnesty and we should instead impose criminal penalties on illegal immigrants in the U.S. Republican and conservative opinion is only slightly lower. 68% of conservatives and 64% of Republicans support granting legal status over criminal penalties.)
Last time I checked Sens. Larry Craig (R-ID) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) aren't moderate squishes.
Craig:
Is this bill perfect? No. But it realistically addresses the immigration challenges facing America today by delivering in each of the three critical areas of reform: better border security, increased internal enforcement, and visa reform. Without all three, reform is meaningless, because it will be incomplete and ineffective.
I'm very pleased that Idaho's growers are one step closer to being able to hire workers more efficiently, with confidence those workers are here legally. Without that ability, and without those workers, crops will rot in the field and American agriculture will look to outsourcing to foreign countries. I doubt Americans want to be dependent on foreign nations for food in the same way we are for oil. If it becomes law, this legislation will prevent that from happening.
As we move forward, I will encourage my fellow House and Senate negotiators to work together with American farmers and consumers in mind, and reach a compromise soon.
McConnell:
Today, the Senate passed a bill to strengthen our borders, reform guest-worker programs that benefit employers and our economy, and deter illegal activity. I believe more work needs to be done to improve the bill as Congress considers it further. However, this is a necessary first step to balancing our tradition as a nation of immigrants, but also a nation of laws.
I also suspect that Sen. McConnell (with California Gov. Pete Wilson in mind) isn't interested in watching the GOP become a minority party in the years ahead. That said, House Republicans are in a position to get tough border enforcement in the final conference bill and shouldn't let this opportunity pass them by.
Here's an interesting nugget from the latest Economist:
For many, perhaps most Americans, the question is not "Should we welcome immigrants?" but "How many?" A moderate influx may be economically helpful and culturally invigorating; a huge one would be disruptive. It is not easy, however, to look at a proposed law and predict how many newcomers it might let in.
Some estimates are extremely high. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, put it at 100m over 20 years if the Senate bill were enacted. His study, released on the same day as Mr Bush's speech, also included a "maximum" estimate of 193m. That figure—equivalent to 60% of the current population—was seized upon by alarmists such as Rush Limbaugh, a talk-radio host, and Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic senator from California.
But cooler heads queried Mr Rector's methodology. Michael Fix of the Migration Policy Institute, a pro-immigration think-tank, said he doubted that the guest-worker programme would expand as fast as Mr Rector assumes, that immigrants would naturalise as quickly, that so few would die or return home, and that so many would bring their parents. Compounded over decades, small changes in assumptions lead to big changes in results. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that immigration reform would add a more modest 7.8m people to America's population over ten years.
That population is growing more rapidly than any other rich country's, but this owes more to a healthy birth rate than to immigration. Granted, some of the higher birth rate stems from immigrant fertility. But the melting pot is still bubbling: adult immigrants work, and their children virtually all speak English. A flexible labour market and stingy welfare state ensure that there is no resentful immigrant underclass with time on its hands, as in France.
Avoiding just such a simmering immigrant underclass is one reason conservative George Will supports a path to citizenship:
As the debate about immigration policy boils, augmented border control must not be the entire agenda, lest other thorny problems be ignored....
Conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France.
One last thing: those in the White House and on Capitol Hill should read this and then this (on the "political disaster" facing Republicans) before the GOP Jumps the Shark on immigration.
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