National Review Online
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Friday, April 10, 2009

Illegal Immigration, the Great Democratic Hope [Victor Davis Hanson]

There is a great deal of chest-thumping among Obama's supporters that "comprehensive immigration" reform is an invaluable campaign issue that will ensure a Democratic Southwest, as Republicans fall into some sort of nativist trap.

I'm not so sure. Hispanics respect the rule of law as much as anyone; closing the borders first, then worrying about the auxillary issues later, won't necessarily prove polarizing, especially if presented in terms of a desire to insist on the rule of law and a racially/ethnically blind nation. This year's immigration lead-ins on the evening news are not Minutemen on the border and poor immigrants wandering the desert deprived of water by cruel Americans, but lines of Americans at job fairs, reports that the unemployed are looking for any sort of work that they can get their hands on, and a brutality and savagery right across the border every bit as disturbing as what we've seen on jihadist videos.

What will cause polarization is a radical Democratic drive now for de facto amnesty without border closure — at a time of rising unemployment here at home and utter chaos and violence in Mexico. So far the real extremist rhetoric (cf. Ms. Pelosi's recent rants in California) has come from the open-borders side, not from those who wish to return to legal immigration and a border run in accordance with the law.

04/10 04:54 PM

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