Ross Douthat’s recent excellent New York Times column (The Demographic Excuse, November 10, 2012) echoed the argument by Politico analyst Sean Trende (see James Antle’s review of Trende’s The Lost Majority: Why the Future of Government Is Up for Grabs - and Who Will Take It): Latinos are not a bloc and should not be so treated.
Thus the possible rush to a new amnesty—aka “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”—would not help the Republican Party electorally. (More important, in my view as a Democrat: the GOP will continue to lose until it gets off its absurd stance on social issues such as reproductive rights).
The key problem with Comprehensive Immigration Reform: prior efforts by the Open Borders crowd contained no safeguards on numbers or penalties for breaking the law.
Without safeguards, everything now proposed will drive the USA closer to the chaos which is now building in. You can’t continue to let people ignore our laws and expect any respect for them.
The 1986 amnesty gave 3 million illegal aliens license to stay. But now there are 12 million illegal aliens here—and their children are going to be going to school under the so-called Dream Act, which will, I predict quickly be made permanent by Congress in 2013.
Our fiscal crisis looms unsolved, the first order of business, only exacerbated by the huge addition of aliens over decades.
However, the present state of American citizen unemployment and economic distress may allow safeguards to be put into any immigration legislation which did not exist before.
Also we might get E-verify made permanent and mandatory for all employers.
Of course, that if the Obama Administration won’t enforce the law, we are in deep trouble— and that has so far too often been the President’s policy.
Nothing is easy. The full efforts of all who believe in the Rule of Law and the rights of all American citizens will be needed to put Comprehensive Immigration Reform down for the fourth time!
If we are no longer a nation ruled by law, we will shortly not be a nation of consequence.
About the Author: Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC. , is CoChair of the National Advisory Board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). However, his views are his own