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GOP Presidential Contenders Commit Hara-kiri on Immigration Reform
Thursday, May 24, 2007
By Jerome R. Corsi
In the current immigration debate in the Senate, Republican conservatives should take a lesson from Sam Brownback (R.-Kansas) and the debate on the Kennedy-McCain S-2611 “comprehensive immigration reform” bill supported by President Bush in the 109th Congress. A year ago we warned that Brownback’s decision to co-sponsor S-2611 could cost him the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.
The day after the Nov. 2006 electoral debacle President Bush shockingly told a White House news conference that he was happy the Democrats won control of Congress because now he might get his comprehensive immigration reform passed.
Today, no contender, except Fred Thompson should he enter the race, has a stronger pro-life or pro-family record than Brownback. Yet, Brownback’s identification with the “guest worker amnesty” at the center of S-2611 distanced him from the party’s conservatives who continue to believe that border security can only be achieved by building a fence.
Whether the forces moving the Republican Party to the center like it or not, border security and building a fence are likely to become the sine qua non of conservatives when making a decision whether or not to support the Republican Party’s nominee for president. Any Republican Party presidential candidate running from Congress this year will suffer the “Brownback Hara-kiri” if Republican primary voters find them among the ranks pushing for this year’s version of the “guest worker amnesty.”
Already, John McCain (R.-Ariz.) has hurt himself by being photographed once again with Ted Kennedy (D.-Mass.) in the announcement of the “grand bargain” that has brought forth S-1348, another bill calculated to give the word “comprehensive” an even more pejorative connotation among conservatives.
Nor was McCain elevated by his unfortunate exchange of angry words with Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Texas). McCain should by now realize that his presidential chances are not enhanced by hurling the “F” words at neighbor-state colleagues from within his own party and insisting that he knows more than they do on the subject of illegal immigration. Not much better was McCain’s suggestion that Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney ought to “get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn.”
So far Rudy Giuliani has avoided being damaged by S-1348 only because he is not in the Senate. Recent revelations document that Giuliani’s Houston-based law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, has represented Cintra, the Spanish investment consortium, in their negotiations to be the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) player in the Texas Department of Transportation’s Trans-Texas Corridor. Unfortunately, Giuliani record suggests that he will come down on the side of supporting a guest worker program and a “path to citizenship” rather than advocating fence-building as the primary mission of conservative immigration reform.
There is no way Republican presidential contenders can support this bill without doing fatal damage to their White House aspirations. At the heart of this bill, the concept of “triggers” in S-1348 is seriously flawed. We should want to enhance border security in order to keep more illegal immigrants out of the United States, not because we are over anxious to grandfather the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here.
Besides, what is the penalty if the border security “triggers” are never met? The only penalty is that the government will not be able to begin issuing “Z” visas. This is completely backwards. Conservatives might respond ironically, “Great, then let’s not enhance border security because then the triggers won’t get met and no Z visas will be issued.”
The very design of the trigger feature reveals a bias of the compromisers in the White House and Senate to wave the magic wand over the 12 million or more illegal immigrants who are here, just to permit them to stay. Does anyone seriously believe that conservatives will buy the notion that we are going now finally to get border security because it is the requirement for the left to get their pseudo-amnesty implemented?
Another fatal flaw of the bill is the assumption that illegal immigrants would pay substantial fees, fines, or back taxes in order to obtain a Z visa. What would happen if the Z visas were available and nobody came to apply? Most likely nothing would happen and we would just be stuck with the status quo, with the millions of illegal immigrants just staying put.
Illegal immigrants and their supporters have soundly destroyed the straw argument that we have no resolve to round up and deport millions of illegal aliens. We are not enforcing our employment-oriented immigration laws now. Why would we suddenly begin enforcing immigration employment requirements in the dubious era of the Z visa?
President Bush evidently learned nothing in his failure to push S-2611 through the 109th Congress. The day after the Nov. 2006 electoral debacle President Bush shockingly told a White House news conference that he was happy the Democrats won control of Congress because now he might get his comprehensive immigration reform passed. Isn’t President Bush supposed to be the leader of the Republican Party? Why would President Bush celebrate Democrats on the eve of their turning back the last vestiges of the historic Gingrich revolution in Congress?
Tom A. Coburn
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into InsidersNow, with the Senate debate scheduled to extend a week after Memorial Day, Republican senators are certain to confront angry constituents who feel President Bush has failed to listen to them for six years on the necessity to secure our borders as a first priority. If the Senate persists to pass S-1348, fatal damage could be done not only to Republican presidential candidates who support the bill, but even to the Republican Party itself. The lesson we should have learned from Nov. 2006 is that a Republican Party who betrays their conservative base is a Republican Party headed on the road to electoral defeat.
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