http://www.palmbeachpost.com

Feeding immigrants to the GOP beast
By Dan Moffett

Palm Beach Post Columnist

Sunday, August 20, 2006

If you still have Friday's paper, take a look at the photo on Page 6A. If you don't, try to remember how "Kenny Boy" Lay looked the last time he walked out of a courthouse.

That was the expression on the face of U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, as he got into his car and prepared to leave Lake Worth City Hall on Thursday.

Behind him was a group of placard-carrying protesters who jeered him and called him a racist. Rep. Shaw is no racist. But he is part of the House Republicans' demagoguery tour barnstorming its way across the country.

GOP leaders have scheduled dozens of hearings in at least 13 states during the August recess to promote a House immigration bill that is so sublimely draconian it has no measurable support in the Senate or the White House.

The House Republicans' idea of immigration reform was to make all illegal immigrants felons and to consider people who help them criminally liable. So think about that prospect the next time you donate clothes to Goodwill or contribute to the local soup kitchen. The GOP believes that you are aiding and abetting the felonious behavior of tomato pickers and nannies. Rep. Shaw and the boys think you should give up peaceably and turn yourselves in.

Of course, these provisions and others in the bill would be too absurd to leave a mark in the real world, were it not for the vigilantes, extremists and GOP team players such as Rep. Shaw who are stimulated by the political bombast of it all. The House bill never will go anywhere as it is, but it might just inflame the base enough to turn out en masse for the November elections.

You can't run a country on demagoguery, but you probably can steer it for a while if you're not particular about whom you run over.

The barnstorming, brainstorming House Republicans hope that staging political theater in places such as Plano, Texas, Dubuque, Iowa, and Lake Worth will muster opposition to a Senate bill that is so liberal it does not consider busboys felons.

These hearings and faux town-hall meetings are so ridiculously contrived, it is as if they were scripted by Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, or immigration hawk Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., - which is essentially the case.

Take Thursday's gig with Clay Shaw, for example. It was to be a strictly controlled two-hour session. Only approved speakers would be invited, and their comments would be limited. No questions from the public would be accepted. In fact, they preferred that the public not even show up. The session was supposed to be publicized only enough to satisfy minimum notice requirements. Interested parties were allowed to submit written comments, if interested parties were willing to waste their time.

So Rep. Shaw went to Lake Worth. He brought Rep. Phil English, R-Pa., with him. Their mission was to collect immigrant-felon stories and take them back to Washington to feed the GOP beast.

But, due to a production mishap, they'll not have much to take back. Producers invited the wrong panelists: Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Schools Superintendent Art Johnson, Lake Worth Mayor Mark Drautz and Jupiter Town Manager Andy Lukasik.

These four departed from the script and gave a disappointing performance that approached the immigration problem from a rational, apolitical, honest perspective. The GOP sought angry bombast but got insight instead. What will they ever do with that?

Rep. Shaw invited the Palm Beach County officials to pile on, but they wouldn't have it. Is illegal immigration a problem? Of course. Do we want secure borders? Of course. But the people on the front lines of the issue have much more to say.

Sheriff Bradshaw called illegal immigrants a "legitimate workforce" that fills jobs Americans don't want. Mayor Drautz talked about the culpability of U.S. employers who exploit foreign workers and how illegal immigrants are most often crime victims, not criminals. Mr. Lukasik talked about his town's center for day laborers. Mr. Johnson refused to whine about the growing numbers of immigrants in his schools: He said his job was to "educate the children in front of me," no matter who they are.

Once again, it's apparent that the wisdom to achieve true immigration reform is found within local communities, not in Washington.

Messrs Bradshaw, Drautz, Lukasik and Johnson had no trouble getting to their cars. Check the photo to see how Rep. Shaw left.