Politicians and illegal aliens.

(I wrote this on May 16th, before the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" plan was announced. I think it still applies.)

What is going on in Washington? There is strong momentum to grant amnesty to millions of people who have come here illegally. Who are the key players and why do they feel this way?

Bush. He has turned out to be more liberal than we could have possibly imagined. He has run up the deficit, tolerated immoral behavior within the party, failed to exercise leadership in congress, withheld the veto power, submitted high court candidates that were laughable, and embraced illegal aliens. Clearly, he is a “Big Tent Republican”, a populist. He will do whatever it takes to win an election. To him a firm party platform is nonsense; what we need is voter appeal. And he has plenty of company, which is frightening indeed. I call them Bushocrats because there is little of the conservative nature in them.

The Democrats. At least they are predictable. They owned the Hispanic vote until Bush began chipping away at it. Once he started working their side of the street, they began agitating Latino activists. They are the prize in a bidding war for swing votes.

Both parties know how I will vote. They have figured out the Soccer Mom. The union man will always vote for the party. But the Latinos are up for grabs. Bush is said to have won over the hearts of 40% of them in 2004. That simply will not do for the Democrats. So the deals abound.

What happened in November 2006 is sometimes characterized as a spanking of the Republicans for playing hardball on immigration. It is true that there was a 10% shift of the Hispanic vote from Republican to Democrat. The Latino activists will tell you it is because they don’t trust the Republicans to deliver immigration reform. But they are selling their own people short, as if brown voters only care about that one issue.

What they don’t tell you is that the white voters shifted 11% from the right to the left. ONE PERCENT MORE MOVEMENT THAN THE LATINOS! Why? Well, white voters were concerned about Republican immorality and corruption (The Gay Congressman Scandal that went unchecked by the House), deficit spending, and poor execution of the war strategy in Iraq.

Could it be that Hispanic voters were reacting to the same issues? Of course not, it was immigration. Yeah, right. Don’t downplay the Latino voter's ability to care about other issues.

So, the politicians are trying to give away the country and take credit for it, hoping to be the heroes of immigration reform.

Mayor Ritchie Daley spoke on May 1st (a traditional socialist/communist holiday-“Workers of the world unite”) to the crowd gathered in Chicago protesting immigration policy. I’ve listened to the video clip several times.

Maybe he said: “We will not be da turd!” which is an affirmation for self-esteem sometimes uttered on the South side.

Or maybe it was: We will not be detoured!” but to say that in Chicago in the summertime is silly. It’s just silly.

The papers quoted him as saying, “We will not be deterred!” That is an interesting word, “deter”. Way back in 1981 a commission put together by Jimmy Carter gave their recommendations on the matter of immigration reform. It was this liberal group that suggested amnesty for illegals who had been here for a few years.

But that same commission gave a strong warning. They said that if we don’t take steps to deter future illegals, we’ll be back with the same problem in a few years.

On of the key areas of deterrence was deportation. Here’s what they said: “We recommend that deportation and removal of undocumented/illegal migrants should be effected to discourage early return. Adequate funds should be available to maintain high levels of alien apprehension, detention, and deportation throughout the year.”

They not only knew what needed to be done but they also told the government HOW to do it. They said we’ve got to apprehend them. Take them off the streets and arrest them for being here illegally. And we need to detain them. 22,000 beds will not do the job, President Bush. And we need to have the guts to deport them.

Well, we didn’t listen and we got exactly what they predicted- the illegals are back and we don’t know how to deal with the problem. Duh!

So when Daley says, “We will not be deterred!”, he really means, “They have not been deterred and now I’m going to make the best of the situation.

Luis Gutierrez was also a speaker at that rally. We often wonder why those who have taken the oath of office are so loyal to foreigners, especially illegal ones. Because that is where the growth is. Cook County Illinois saw a 10.1% increase in Hispanics from 2000-2005 while the total population shrunk by 1.4%. (Sounds like white flight to me.) Daley and Gutierrez aren’t stupid and they aren’t bleeding hearts. They simply see the demographic reality that is unfolding right before their eyes in their jurisdictions. A politician simply cannot ignore the brown vote in Chicago any more than he can ignore the black vote.

The question is whether or not the problem has reached “critical mass” in enough populous areas of the United States. If so, the battle is lost. It isn’t hard to see that a high birth rate and a high immigration rate will make the USA a Spanish speaking country within a generation or two. We’ve already been bombarded with Spanish signage, packaging, and media (TV, radio, newspapers). Do you think these things exist due to liberal thinking? No! We have them because businesses and governments believe they will appeal to buyers and voters.

The sad part of it is that our nation’s leaders never really planned this out. It just began to happen and politicians kept doing the expedient thing rather than the right thing. In fact, if you go back to the mid to late 1960s you will see that immigration reform was done in the name of family unification. They scarcely thought of Mexico.

In the first transition year of the 1965 reform bill the federal experts predicted that the changes would only add 5,000 new immigrants. They were wrong. The increase was 90,000! And another 90,000 on top of that the next year! That’s quite a difference. In the real world mistakes like that will get you fired. But instead of admitting that they blew it, they kept ignoring the reality of their poor planning. And these were just the legal immigrants. There was the problem of illegal aliens all along.

It is almost eerie to read the commission recommendations in 1981 and 1994 when blue ribbon panels were convened to advise the government on immigration. The same things Bush talks about today were problems back then. Border security, the need for deportation, employer sanctions, visa control, and document fraud. Some things never change.

And the September 11th Commission made the same points all over again, punctuated with 3,000 dead Americans. Still Washington didn’t listen. And they aren’t listening now. The focus of all the talk about immigration is on accommodating the 12 million illegals residing here and their relatives in third world countries that want to come later.

There isn’t much talk about deterrence, demographics, or defense.

And frankly, most Americans doubt the federal government has the ability to do much of anything effectively, except perhaps collect taxes and harass the law abiding. But we’ve always been pretty cooperative, haven’t we?

This latest plan has a couple of things to say about “triggers”, implying that the deal includes certain milestones of enforcement BEFORE perks can be given to the illegals. But that isn’t going to deter the next batch of would-be illegal aliens; all they care about is the ability to hide here until Washington gets generous again.

Deterrence for me means some strong, visible deportation efforts. It means reversing the “laws” granted by the courts that invite illegals to come here for anchor baby citizenship, free emergency care, and free public education. And it means local enforcement of immigration laws rather than silent accommodation of those who are here illegally.

Demographics means a thoughtful discussion by our elected leaders about whether or not we should allow the U.S.A. to get browner. And if the answer is no, we ought to change the quotas and the mix of immigrants to reverse the trend.

As for defense, do we have control of our borders? Do we know where our visa-holding visitors are? Do we have ways to remove them when their visas expire? Have we learned how to master things like Drivers Licenses and bank accounts?

But with Bush and Congress having approval ratings in the low 30’s they seem oblivious to the people and our disgust with their behavior. They rush about making their deals and thinking only of themselves. If we can’t seem to enforce the laws, let’s just make them easier to enforce. That’ll work. It’s too bad, really. This was a nice country once.