Immigration – Again
The recent rallies in protesting against restrictive immigration legislation are causing all sorts of political nightmares in Washington. The New York Times has this article: Immigrants Rally in Scores of Cities for Legal Status
Now that the legislative process has ground to a halt the politics can start in earnest. So far the Republican leadership has only been able to come up with the story that the Democrats ‘killed’ the legislation for political gain. When you read the fine print of some of the adjustments the Dems wanted to include in the failed Senate bill last week you’d have to agree with that assessment. The Dems must have been laughing at the complete inability of the Republicans to get their act together, so they slipped some really vague stuff into the bill that left the definition of ‘illegal’ and a ‘job’ so fuzzy that the legislation would have caused a legal system malfunction. At least the Republicans didn’t let it into law.
On the other side the split in the right wing ranks is so deep it is going to take some monumental papering over to get any kind of agreement. the problem is that there is an ocean of a distance separating the Lincoln Republicans [all two of them!] from the ‘Red Meaters’ from the border states. The former would naturally want a more compassionate response to illegal immigration, while the latter haven’t seen an issue that bullying won’t cure. Ne’er the twain shall meet!
As I have said before: immigration is a fact of life here in America. It is rank hypocrisy for all these Red Staters to sit up one day and disclaim their horror at the illegals when they have known full well who’s picking their crops for years. It is extraordinarily immoral to stir the anti-illegal pot all of a sudden after having benefitted for years from the flow of labor. It is even worse to develop a quasi racial tone in the political invective. To read some of the speeches being made about this issue you’d think the debate was one of national survival in the face of a wave of a Spanish speaking horde intent on undermining the good old American way of life!
There are plenty of disgruntled indigenous American voters who are eager to be led down the populist path by slippery politicians offering what seems to be an easy solution: “send them home!”
Not only is that message impractical it’s flat out immoral. And it severs today’s America from its immigrant heritage.
That’s why I still think that the nation needs time for a more sober discussion. The issues are too complicated for us to answer without a long debate. Like everything in life I doubt whether the ultimate solution will make anyone happy. Compromise never does. But it is the only course open to us.
This should be a major topic in the next few elections. That’s what politics is for. To discuss things amongst ourselves.
