Thread: McCain pushes immigration policy overhaul

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McCain pushes immigration policy overhaul
Wants 'guest workers' to earn US citizenship
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | February 23, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Senator John McCain, the rebellious Republican and leading 2008 presidential prospect, kicks off a national campaign in Miami today promoting an issue that is likely to further alienate him from his party's conservative voters: allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the country legally as ''guest workers" who could earn US citizenship.

McCain argues that an overhaul of US immigration laws -- and forging a path toward legal status for some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already living here -- is the best choice for the country on national security, economic, and humanitarian grounds. The idea, he maintains, is to bring out of the shadows the millions of undocumented workers who help drive the nation's economy.

On Tuesday, McCain told reporters in a conference call that his bill, cosponsored with Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, provides the only realistic way to solve the ''national security" problem of illegal immigration. Competing proposals that would force out or deport undocumented migrants aren't realistic, he said. ''They have to pay a penalty for breaking the law," McCain said, ''but saying they have to go back to the country that they came from is something someone is going to have to explain to me how you do that, much less all the humanitarian aspects of it."

Political analysts, however, wonder if McCain should risk making the bill -- written with Kennedy, the liberal Democrat who is a pariah to conservatives -- a signature issue so soon before the next presidential election. Conservative Republicans, one of the party's most influential factions, don't like the proposal.

''He's got a position on immigration that puts him at loggerheads with the conservative wing of his party," said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas. ''They've been suspicious of him for years, and his position on this issue only adds to that suspicion."

Conservatives' antipathy toward McCain dates to the 2000 presidential campaign, when he assailed religious-right leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. While McCain stands with conservatives against abortion rights and for the Iraq war, his campaign finance reform plan angered many voters on the right.

In recent years, immigration has ignited passions on the right.

In December, conservative Republican leaders in the House of Representatives fought and defeated President Bush's plans for a guest worker program, adopting even stricter border controls instead. When Bush reiterated his support for the idea in his State of the Union speech, party activists on the right were furious. And at a gathering of conservative leaders here this month, several speakers condemned guest worker proposals as ''rewarding" illegal behavior; others called for a wall at the Mexico border.

Nevertheless, the business community, including the US Chamber of Commerce, supports the McCain-Kennedy plan, and a recent public opinion poll by Public Opinion Strategies found some confusion among likely Republican voters. ''There appears to be majority support for a tough deportation policy, [yet] when voters hear from both sides, the issue becomes cloudy," according to the poll.

''There is no consensus position on immigration reform within the Republican electorate," the pollsters concluded.

McCain has made a career of playing the role of political maverick, a lawmaker who supposedly speaks his mind regardless of what opinion polls say. And whether it was calculated or not, Buchanan and other analysts said, McCain's gambit on this issue may pay off if he decides to run for president.

Stephen Hess, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution, said McCain's stance made him look ''gutsy" because many of his constituents in Arizona want action to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across the Mexican border. McCain is sending his message to a broader national audience -- and is ''more George W. Bush than anyone else," Hess said.

Despite their political rivalry, he added, Bush and McCain have set aside their differences on legislation and the Iraq war, and both men are border state conservatives with immigration views that put them at odds with much of their party.

Tamar Jacoby, an immigration analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a pro-business, pro-immigration think-tank, said that McCain could benefit in the long run; his proposal could help voters see him as a ''problem-solver who wants to take on the hard issues."

Still, Jacoby said, the senator's position could also provoke unanticipated consequences. Should McCain become his party's front-runner for president, she said, there is talk that Representative Tom Tancredo -- the Colorado Republican who has been a leader against immigration reform -- could make an independent run for the presidency, which could undermine McCain's GOP base.

Nina Easton of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Yeah and I heard today, McCain didn't receive a very friendly opinion of his Amnesty Bill at one of his meetings.

Glad he didn't get a good welcome!

Wish the people had booed him down.

If Tancredo goes Independent, I'll vote for him

McCain's bill is a declaration of War on Americans. It is 10 times worse than the 1986 amnesty. So who cares if like McCain says: "it's not like the 1986 amensty, since the illegals don't get green cards right away, and they have to pay a $2000 fine".

It does have just like the 1986 amnesty an exemption to the per-county limits which will primariy benefit Mexicans. Mexican immigration will jump to over 1 million a year. Soon 40% of Mexico's population will be in the US.

I wonder how the descendents of Mexican-American War veterans feel about that?

I think McCain needs to be sent back to the Hanoi Hilton to be "de-educated" (the opposite of the "re-education" brainwashing the VC obviously used on him).

and forging a path toward legal status for some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already living here -- is the best choice for the country on national security, economic, and humanitarian grounds.

First of all, it's a whole lot more than eleven million of them here. Which eleven million are they going to pick and what is going to happen to the other ten million? Second, whose economy? And humanitarian for who? Not Americans, that is for sure.

NUMBERS has a fax prepared to McCain. There are so many people sending it tonight that I couldn't send it through them so I sent my own. What a jerk!

Man, they're so busy over there tonight I couldn't even log on! I'd hate to have to pay for the fax paper in HIS office this week.