National Review Online
David Frum's Diary
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Dems Immigration Dilemma

From my continuing debate in The Week with Bob Shrum:

... Democrats face some severe strategic dilemmas. The party is a coalition that draws its strength from the top and bottom of American society. That raises questions like: How will Democrats handle the immigration problem?

It’s an issue that has become more and more important to more and more voters. The Democrats’ upper-income supporters profit from current loose immigration policies. Many of the Democrats’ lower-income supporters are recent immigrants themselves or else the relatives of recent immigrants. They profit, too.

But the costs of current policy are borne by middle-income taxpayers, who through their property taxes pay the cost of the schools, hospitals, roads, and prisons required by legal and illegal immigrants, and by less-skilled workers, including many black Americans, whose wages are squeezed by the newcomers.

Democrats will likely continue the current lenient policy. Middle-class voters will very rationally prefer a policy of enforcement. Reconciling these imperatives will not be easy. The choice that Democrats make will reveal much truth about what today’s Democratic Party is—and about whom it most faithfully represents.
11/12 09:07 PM

http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q= ... k0NjQ4Nzc=