Republicans Courting Anti-Immigration Pundits
In the wake of the passage of Arizona’s immigration laws, we’ve seen a return to the stump of some of the GOP’s best-known anti-immigration pundits:
The country’s highest-profile foes of illegal immigration are in high demand on the campaign circuit, as the renewed debate over immigration reform makes their endorsements an increasingly valuable commodity in many Republican primary elections.
GOP candidates eager to show off their conservative credentials on the issue are looking for help from figures like former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo and Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made a national name for himself by cracking down on illegal immigrants in the Phoenix area.
Tancredo, who ran a quixotic 2008 presidential campaign focused on immigration, issued the most recent of some 30 endorsements this cycle on Wednesday, backing Arizona congressional candidate Sam Crump for the seat of retiring Republican Rep. John Shadegg. Crump, a former state representative, was an original co-sponsor of Arizona legislation making it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and empowering police to question people’s immigration status upon reasonable suspicion that they might lack proper documentation.
That was just one episode in a busy day for Tancredo, who also held a rally Wednesday for Republican Gunner DeLay in Arkansas’s 3rd Congressional District. And it’s not only House races where he’s weighing in: Kansas Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s running in a competitive GOP Senate primary, touts Tancredo’s endorsement in his website.
For someone dismissed as a gadfly during the 2008 GOP presidential primaries, there’s a certain vindication in his newfound status as a conservative validator. Tancredo boasted to POLITICO: “Today everyone sounds like Tom Tancredo on immigration.
“John McCain sounds like Tom Tancredo,” he said, joking: “There’s an impostor running around in Arizona saying all the right stuff…I’m expecting him to request my endorsement any day now.”
None of this, including John McCain’s sudden conversion from immigration reformer to border cop, is really all that surprising considering that most recent polls show overwhelming public support for the Arizona law:
A majority of the public support Arizona’s tough immigration law which has been criticized by President Barack Obama and outraged civil rights groups, according to an opinion poll published Wednesday.
A study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found broad US public support for key provisions of the Arizona immigration crackdown, which opponents have claimed will lead to ethnic profiling by police.
The law, which gives police the power to question an individual’s immigration status and makes illegal immigration a state crime, has prompted calls for a boycott of Arizona by local officials in neighboring states.
However the Pew study of 994 adults surveyed between May 6-9 found that the Arizona immigration reform has struck a chord with the US public.
Some 73 percent of those surveyed said they approved of the provision which requires people to provide proof of their legal status, compared with 23 percent who disapproved.
A further 67 percent were in favor of allowing police to detain anyone unable to verify their legal status, while 62 percent supported police having the power to question anyone they believed may in the country illegally.
Overall, 59 percent of respondents approved of the Arizona law while 32 percent disapproved, the study found.
So, as is usually the case, being aggressive on immigration is politically advantageous. The problem for Republicans, though, is two-fold.
First, while the Arizona law may be overwhelmingly popular nationwide, it is overwhelmingly unpopular among Hispanics. Just as Republican support for Proposition 187 sixteen years ago went a long way toward making California a Democratic enclave, support for Arizona’s law could end up hurting Republicans in the Southwest and other parts of the country where Hispanic voters are high in numbers.
Second, pandering to the anti-illegal immigration crowd like this is likely to make it difficult for Republicans to actually fix the immigration problem when they get back in power. The 2007 immigration bill — the so-called “amnesty” bill that the right unceremoniously shot down — was actually a fairly decent compromise on an issue that can’t be solved by soundbites. Making the Tom Tancredo’s of the world the poster child for Republican immigration policy just means that the issue will remain as political red meat, not that it will ever actually be resolved.
Seems like the new gay marriage issue. Gays are getting married and nothing else has changed. The world goes on. A new issue is needed. Arizona passes a law that has little chance to accomplish anything, but looks tough. A good rallying point for the base. Since the point is to get elected, not governing, it may work. Like abortion, this works best if it is never resolved.
Steve
Immigration has been a wedge issue for Republicans for awhile, but they’ve downplayed it in the past because of their simultaneous efforts to court Hispanic votes in Texas, the Southwest, and California.
When I’m at my most cynical, I might agree with something like this.
But I think the biggest problem is that Republican solutions to the illegal immigration just don’t work. They could have hearts pure as snow and nothing but good intentions, but until they get some better ideas, it’ll all be for naught.
Doug — PLEASE do not tar conservatives who support this law as “anti-immigrant!” I’m in AZ, and this is one of the most friendly states/societies for LEGAL immigrants in the U.S. Arizonans support refugee communities, patronize businesses run by immigrants, and welcome people from all over the world into our churches, neighborhoods, and workplaces. Our problem is that illegal immigrants who pour across our borders include career criminals, drug traders, kidnappers, extortioners, and murderers. Three of the last ten Phoenix police officers killed in the line of duty were murdered by illegal immigrants. The border needs to be secured, and the immigration laws need to be changed to allow more LEGAL immigrants who are law-abiding to enter the U.S. The term “anti-immigrant” inaccurately describes Arizonans, and implies that our objection to the non-enforcement of immigration law is rooted in xenophobia or racism.
“Our problem is that illegal immigrants who pour across our borders include career criminals, drug traders, kidnappers, extortioners, and murderers.”
Those are not immigrants. Immigrants come here to work and live. Those are drug cartel members who will be totally unaffected by the Arizona law. Professional criminals arent going to get caught on traffic stops.
Steve
Amen to the second part. I’m all for a secure border, but recognize that in the jet age, there’s a border at every international airport in the country. Do we need more airport security? I don’t know.
As for the Southern border, I’m all for practical steps, a fence, checkpoints, surveillance systems, etc. But with the expansion of legal immigration, I’m not sure we stack all our chips on the border, per se.
Immigration enforcement happens mostly in a court room. Not in the Arizona desert.
True. One more byproduct of the idiocy that is the “war on drugs”.
It’s also betraying their supposed small government principles. Small government, which by any reasonable definition must include more than just spending and tax levels, is not compatible with setting up the sort of police state the anti-immigrant parts of the GOP want in the name of their pet issue.
I call bullshit here. The emphasis on the “illegal” word is just a rhetorical ploy, as these groups rabidly fight any attempts to expand legal immigration. Right now it’s more or less impossible for an unskilled worker to immigrate from Mexico unless they can get a loophole like having family member already living in the US.
If it was truly only the illegal status that bothered people, they would have been fine with amnesty, as the immigrants status would have now been legalized. But in reality they don’t want those people here at all, whether illegally OR legally.
Just as Republican support for Proposition 187 sixteen years ago went a long way toward making California a Democratic enclave, support for Arizona’s law could end up hurting Republicans in the Southwest and other parts of the country where Hispanic voters are high in numbers.
Sailer debunks the Prop 187 myth.
Possibly hurting Republicans – first you have to show that Hispanics are not predisposed to voting as an ethnic bloc and so could be a viable demographic into which Republicans could make inroads. Will Hispanics be attracted to a Republican platform that doesn’t pander to ethnic blocs? I don’t see much convincing evidence that a race-neutral orientation is an appealing philosophy to the majority of Hispanics, so this being the case, the prospect of losing support in a group which is not inclined to support you in any case, is what is technically called a false dilemma fallacy.
Second, pandering to the anti-illegal immigration crowd like this is likely to make it difficult for Republicans to actually fix the immigration problem when they get back in power. The 2007 immigration bill — the so-called “amnesty†bill that the right unceremoniously shot down — was actually a fairly decent compromise on an issue that can’t be solved by soundbites.
You mean it was “actually a fairly decent compromise” by your unstated, and therefore vague, standards, rather than by some objective assessment or by an assessment measured against declared standards.
How is it fair to Americans that violators of the law are amnestied? How is it fair that instead of Americans choosing which immigrants to admit they are forced to accept the choices handed to them by the illegal immigrant invaders themselves? How is it fair to people who’ve been waiting decades to immigrate legally to have illegals aliens rewarded for breaking the law?
Making the Tom Tancredo’s of the world the poster child for Republican immigration policy just means that the issue will remain as political red meat, not that it will ever actually be resolved.
The more that Tancredo works his charm and exercises his influence the greater becomes the prospect of an actual solution. If Eisenhower era law enforcement was able to deport 1,000,000 illegal aliens in 1954, surely our more modern and efficient law enforcement infrastructure should be able to deport, say 5,000,000, and hopefully make life so miserable for the remaining aliens that many of them will self-deport.
Those are not immigrants. Immigrants come here to work and live. Those are drug cartel members who will be totally unaffected by the Arizona law. Professional criminals arent going to get caught on traffic stops.
I see that Orwellian doublethink has entered the fray. Lame.
Right now it’s more or less impossible for an unskilled worker to immigrate from Mexico unless they can get a loophole like having family member already living in the US.
As it should be. When I see folks like you going into highschools and urging students to drop out of school because the US needs more low skilled and uneducated people in the population, then that will be a sign that immigration law should be changed to allow for the legal immigration of uneducated and non-skilled workers.
For people who don’t believe in liberty. TangoMan envisions a nation where people need permission from the government to get a job, to move to a new house, to spend time with people, etc. Every decision needs to be checklisted by some federal beuracrat to make sure it’s what “the US needs”.
And this is the supposed party of “limited governmnet”.
The main problem with the revised AZ law is that it doesn’t go far enough. We need the police to be able to perform racial or non-racial profile filtering on the fly, detect and arrest the illegals, and to have transport warmed up and ready to haul the illegals to the border forthwith. Sort of like a vacuum-cleaner approach.
This goes along with the 15 other major things needing doing to shut down wandering illegals in our nation more or less permanently.
However, more power to legal immigrants that wish to obey our laws and enter the nation properly.
For people who don’t believe in liberty.
I’m willing to strike a grand bargain with people like you, and I’m sure that there are others like me as well.
Here’s the deal – eliminate all social transfer schemes and in return I’ll drop my objections to border controls.
If I don’t have to pay to provide education and health care and expanded water mains, and expanded electrical distribution systems, etc for the influx of illegals and they have to pay their own way, then my primary concern is satisfied. I grant you that this bargain is not an optimum outcome for me because it will ruin the nation, in that it will target citizens as well as illegals, but settling for less-than-optimum outcomes is the nature of bargaining.
Frankly, I don’t understand your conception of liberty. How is liberty preserved when foreigners can invade the country and force citizens to subsidize their existence here. Extorting taxes from me, through threats of organized violence against my person, so as to redistribute the fruits of my labor to others runs counter to any notion of liberty that I recognize.
So because politicians have taken away some of my liberty and this is creating social problems, this justifies other politicians taking away even more of my liberty?
Mmmm, I love self-licking ice cream cones.
So because politicians have taken away some of my liberty and this is creating social problems, this justifies other politicians taking away even more of my liberty?
Huh? If we adopt a “night watchman state” then that would result in a flourishing of liberty and would undo the liberty restrictions that are already in place.
Now let me guess – you didn’t comment on my proposal because you actually are quite attached to the notion of wealth redistribution and governmental intervention on issues that you feel need attention. So please, drop the faux concern about reduced liberty.
Pandering to a voting bloc who will never vote for you while telling those who will to f*@k off is a sure fire way to win. Right!!!
“Here’s the deal – eliminate all social transfer schemes and in return I’ll drop my objections to border controls.”
Granted, I read mostly libertarian economists, but most econ guys I read see illegal immigration as an economic wash or a slight positive. The illegals come here to work. They pay taxes, especially payroll, the benefits of which they cannot receive. If my goal was just to increase the number of illegals, that would work fine.
However, I still worry about border sovereignty and security issues. I would prefer a massive increase in the guest worker and legal immigration numbers. That would let us get a handle on who is here. It would also make Mexico and Mexicans a partner in border security. We also need to drop the War on Drugs. Decriminalize or legalize. That should dissolve the cartels. Since border cities already have lower crime rates, that should help cities farther from the border also. Catch any remaining illegals at place of employment.
Steve
It does not matter if poor immigrants from third world countries come here legally or illegally. Increased numbers of them make conservative policies impossible. Importing millions of poor people while the Democrats expand entitlements is suicide for the United States. Tax rates in the future will go above 90% to fund entitlements for the newly imported poor.
If Republicans want to support immigration, then every immigrant should be denied any entitlement for 20 years after immigrating and naturalization to ensure that no one is immigrating to the U.S. for entitlements. In addition, legal immigrants should be limited to the most productive, more educated, and more intelligent immigrants. Leave the poor in their own countries.
However, the cheap labor Republicans need to get it through their thick heads that open borders and unlimited immigration leads to higher taxes, bigger government, more crime, poorer schools, more sprawl,a massive nanny state, a lower standard of living, and more social engineering. The cheap labor Republicans are even too stupid to realize that open borders and unlimited population cannot exist in a country with a social safety net or race based government programs.
Until Affirmative Action and the social safety net are eliminated, please give up the idea of open borders and unlimited immigration.
Want to cut the # of Pheonix cops killed in the line of duty by 7/10ths???
You know the answer… but you don’t like it.
Granted, I read mostly libertarian economists, but most econ guys I read see illegal immigration as an economic wash or a slight positive. The illegals come here to work. They pay taxes, especially payroll, the benefits of which they cannot receive. If my goal was just to increase the number of illegals, that would work fine.
I read the same guys as you. There are a number of flaws in their studies. For instance, Card’s work suffers from confused causality. He looked at employment rates in cities with high illegal alien presence and noted that the rate didn’t differ much from cities with low illegal presence. That doesn’t really tell us much though. Illegals aren’t known for migrating to economically stagnant cities suffering from high unemployment, for such a migration would be counter to their interests. Rather illegals migrated to cities with economies that could use their labor. The key question that he should have investigated was what would the employment effect be on the native population if the illegals were not present in the active labor market of the cities he studied. Comparing Las Vegas employment during the boom, with a lot of illegals present, to the situation in Bangor Maine, with few illegals present and which didn’t have the same labor market “vitality” really doesn’t prove the case.
For a comprehensive examination of this issue the National Academy Of Science commissioned two massive studies, book length in fact, which documented the costs that immigrants and illegals impose on society. As any educated person should expect, legal immigrants who arrive with more than a college education actually contribute more to society than they receive in services. On the other end of the spectrum are those who arrive with less than a high school education. These folks are primarily the illegal aliens and they have a mean level of education of between 6 – 8 years of schooling. Over their lifetime in the US they will consume $140,000 (2010 dollars) more in services than they contribute to the economy.
This conclusion shouldn’t be too surprising if people could just get past the linkage between supporting immigration being a signifier of how honorable a person is, and their attachment to the American mythos surrounding immigration. Simply conduct a thought experiment. If, as these libertarian economists claim, illegal immigrant presence in American society is economically neutral, then we should have no bias against our own kids dropping out of high school for they won’t become burdens on society in need of subsidization. These high school drop-outs would be a fiscally neutral demographic group. OK, whoever believes that raise your hand.
As to your concerns about border security I’m inferring that you’re raising this point in response to my comment about a grand bargain. Never fear for such a bargain would NEVER be realized for leftists would NEVER take their claws out of society and allow the welfare state to whither. For some reason they salivate at the prospect of weighing society down even further by importing evermore poverty into the nation and burdening the net tax contributors with an even larger demographic to subsidize. In other words, they live in fairy tale land, ignorant of basic economics and they think that money grows on trees and that no harm will come to the nation if we Amnesty 20 million illegals and qualify them for the full gamut of wealth redistribution schemes.
The illegals come here to work. They pay taxes, especially payroll, the benefits of which they cannot receive.
1.) Only illegals who are employed under false identities are contributing FICA taxes. Those who participate in the underground economy don’t pay these taxes.
2.) The US – Mexico Totalization Treaty has been fully negotiated now for a few years and is awaiting Senate ratification. Once ratified and signed by the President it will join the scores of other Totalization Treaties we have with other countries. What are Totalization Treaties? They create procedures where retirement taxes paid by a foreign national while working in a host country are credited to them upon retirement or returned to them when their work visa expires and they return to their homeland. There is nothing controversial about these treaties and they smooth the path of international labor mobility. The US-Mexico Treaty has provisions in line with all similar treaties and also notes that contributions paid to false identities shall be credited to the foreign national, and as a matter of fairness it’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t for the identity thief worker did actually make those contributions to the government and so they should be entitled to receive them back upon retirement or leaving the country.
So your claim that these workers are paying taxes which they won’t get back is not wholly true. They can’t get them back at the moment, but as soon as the treaty is ratified they’ll be credited for all of the taxes that they’ve paid, thus creating a larger liability for the US in that all of what you claim will no longer be valid.
It’s interesting to watch how Governor Sarah Palin always ends up on the right side of every issue while President Barack Obama bumbles his way to the wrong side:
Did Palin call for President Bush to do his job and secure our border? If not, this is pretty much just partisan noise. Palin is sort of the right wing version of Bob Hope, who would show up at the opening of a gas station if it got his picture in the paper.
Palin is sort of the right wing version of Bob Hope, who would show up at the opening of a gas station if it got his picture in the paper.
If Palin is the rightwing version of Bob Hope then that must make Obama the left wing version of one of the Marx Brothers. Perhaps Karl?
You wish she could be dismissed that easily. You’re a bit confused though – what was amusing about Bob Hope was the funny contortions he went through to entertain his audience. What’s amusing about Sarah Palin are the funny contortions her liberal critics go through to try and discredit her. Keep on barkin’, the caravan’s still moving on, with or without you…
Which caravan is that? The “let’s take someone even stupider than Bush and put them in charge caravan?” Looks more like a bridge to nowhere…
Tell me Juneau, did President Reagan “secure the border”? No?Ok, so according to Palin, Reagan did not do his job as President. Duly noted. I wonder if the woman you admire so could possibly summon the courage to come out and say that.
John Cleese has Palin’s number dead on. A good looking parrot.
Hey TangoChicken. You did not finish our conversation the other night about how I “fobb off” my family responsibilities…
Still with the Marxists nonsense? My God, you are a truly a dim bulb. It must pain you so when the other kids say shiny clever things. At least the folks on the fringe left are occasionally wittty. What a dreary, dull bunch you right wing weed pickers are…
Which caravan is that? The “let’s take someone even stupider than Bush and put them in charge caravan?”
And to think that we still have more than 2 years before this sorry chapter of American history will end.
Tell me Juneau, did President Reagan “secure the border”?
We have a Act of Congress authorizing the Federal Government to build a fence on the border and your Marx Brother stopped it:
Facts are such inconvenient things to a liberal mind.
It’s a sure sign that there is severe deficiency in an argument when it relies heavily on comparison to what someone else did in the past, rather than what is not being done in the present.
TangoMan = 1 Anjin-san =0
In other words, of course Reagan did not “secure the border”. Nor did any other President in the history of the country.
Since no one with an IQ above 90 is buying into the GOP/Fox meme that Obama is Carter 2.0, I guess you guys need something to talk about. Wonder what the bogus issue de jour will be next month.
Don’t put your faith in walls fellas. Walls will only crush you when they fall…
A Palinite who is not informed by history. Now there is something you don’t see every day. Is reading all those darned books just too hard? You betcha!
In other words, of course Reagan did not “secure the border”. Nor did any other President in the history of the country.
The fence was being built during the Bush Administration. Do you think that miles of it were simply conjured from thin air in the moments between Bush’s end of term and Obama’s inauguration? Congress funded it and the Bush Administration managed it. The Obama Administration stopped work. Governor Palin is correct when she charges the President with not doing his job.
Since no one with an IQ above 90 is buying into the GOP/Fox meme that Obama is Carter 2.0, I guess you guys need something to talk about. Wonder what the bogus issue de jour will be next month.
When people Google the words “Utter Failure” and Obama’s picture comes up, then that’s a sure sign that he’s slipped below the low water mark and that it would be unfair to Carter to label Obama as Carter v.2.0. Obama’s ineptitude is now displacing Carter from the basement of political trainwrecks.
Incidentally, it’s good to know that you subscribe to the concept of IQ and that you categorize people that way. I’ll be sure to make an extra effort to help you in your understanding of current events by framing things this way so that they can resonate profoundly for you.
First, I’m not a Palinite.
Second, you are whistling past the graveyard if you think that Palin can be derailed by yours, or the MSMs, nakedly partisan criticisms.
Third, I’m very comfortable with my IQ and will put it up against yours any day of the week.
And Fourth (drumroll please) the only thing keeping Obama from being in the absolute cellar from a polling standpoint is the concerted effort by the left media to hide / downplay all the devastating facts about his policies; everything from the economy to the now-revealed tax and rationing “treasures” contained in the health care bill.
Your Man- in- Washington is a bumbling, boorish fool who reveals more and more of this to the American people every week. Hint – when the leftist talking heads feel the need to continually tell everyone how really, really, smart Obama is, it’s a sure sign that he isn’t.
Actually, its a sure sign that folks on the right have finally successfully copied a trick Democrats were using on Bush years ago to goose Google results. Yes folks, even Google’s vaunted search algorithms can be manipulated. Ye Gods, is that the best you can do?
Do you really think a silly fence would secure anything? Wow. You are ducking the fact that no President in history has “secured the border”, yet you are trying to convince the truly gullible that this represents some unique failure on Obama’s part, instead simply a status quo that goes back to George Washington.
That explains why you think she is at the head of some sort of “caravan” that cannot be derailed, paranoia about the dreaded “MSM”. (and those devilish “gotcha” questions like “what newspapers do you read”?)
But hey, I will stipulate that you are just some dude, not a Palinite, that is not informed by history. If you were, you would not try the rather laughable tactic of pinning the economic train wreck that we are now coming out of on Obama.
Read the Wall St. Journal Skippy. Hardly a pro-Obama rag. They are the ones writing about a stronger than expected recovery. Bush left an economic meltdown of historic proportions on the front steps of the White House for Obama. Or perhaps you were in a coma when the economy tanked on Bush’s watch.
I will let this little chestnut speak for itself 🙂