PROBLEMA

PRO-ILLEGAL MARCHERS ALIENATING AMERICA
May 2, 2006 -- THANKS a lot, amigos.
The organizers of yesterday's "Day Without Immigrants," who are also responsible for other recent demonstrations demanding special treatment for illegal aliens, have betrayed not only the people they claim to be helping but everyone else who is trying to find a rational and civil answer to an incredibly complex issue.

With their psychotically provocative behavior, these radical lunatics of the Left are moving the ideological goalposts of this debate toward the restrictionist Right. Unless they wise up, by the time they're through every politician in this country outside the inner cities will be paying lip service at the very least to a serious crackdown on illegal immigration.

You can see it happening already.



Even before yesterday's shameful frolics, Hillary Clinton had begun talking about building a border fence - where, back in March, she was taking a soft line, complaining about Republican legislation in shockingly grand terms and comparing illegal immigrants to Jesus Christ.

With her finger stuck way high up in the air to feel the distant breezes of 2008, Hillary realized that the air currents were changing.

Maybe a few months ago it seemed like good politics to be courting Hispanic voters by offering words of support for illegals. But Americans in both parties are now paying far more attention to the issue, and polling shows they just don't like the idea that the laws of the United States are being violated with impunity.

Being soft on illegal immigration is beginning to look like the new millennium's version of being soft on crime. In truth, it's considerably more complicated than that. But the Democratic Party went down the soft-on-crime road once before, with disastrous results.

I have long counseled Republicans and conservatives to resist the temptation that anti-immigration policy represents, both morally and politically. I still think it is profoundly ironic that many on the Right are talking about the terrible costs presented by illegal aliens at a time when the economy is growing at a rate near 5 percent, personal incomes are up, manufacturing is skyrocketing and unemployment is near historic lows.

But if I were a paid political consultant right now, I'd be hard-pressed to talk any Republican into taking an expansive view of the benefits of large-scale immigration. Instead, I would be trying to figure out just how to capitalize on the Democratic Party's embrace of the most irresponsible and reckless liberal rhetoric on the subject of immigration ever heard in this country.

The organizers of yesterday's nationwide demonstration's chose to convince illegals not to go to work. To what end? For what purpose? The industries that employ such workers have spent decades engaged in lobbying activities designed to loosen restrictions. Why would the organizers choose to punish them?

I have an answer. They are doing so for the same reason they encourage the use of Mexican flags at demonstrations, the singing of the National Anthem in Spanish, and the insistence that lawbreakers be given immediate and unconditional citizenship.

They are doing so because they are secretly in the employ of the anti-immigration lobby.

The only people participating in the political debate at the present moment who were overjoyed by yesterday's despicable rallies were anti-illegal activists like Reps. Tom Tancredo and Dana Rohrabacher and behind-the-scenes Washington guys like Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies.

"Thanks for the boycott!" wrote a jubilant Krikorian. Jubilant he should be. The debate is moving in his direction at the speed of light.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedc ... /67809.htm