Thread: GOP Needs a Rethink on Immigration

January 07, 2009, 5:00 a.m.

GOP Needs a Rethink on Immigration
Shift the tone.
By Mark Krikorian

As the 111th Congress convenes, Republicans need to rethink their immigration policy.

This isn’t because of the supposed lessons of last November’s elections. Despite his herculean efforts at passing Ted Kennedy’s amnesty bill, Sen. McCain’s share of the Hispanic vote was in the usual range for Republicans — though lower than the Republican share in 2004, just like among every other category of voter. He did lose, after all. And if no Hispanics at all had voted, Sen. Obama would still have won.

This Congress will be the first since 1965 in which major immigration legislation will be considered with Republicans not in control of any part of the national government (other periods of unified Democratic control didn’t feature any big immigration debates). And it didn’t work out too well last time: Sen. Kennedy’s 1965 immigration-law changes — which he promised, on the record, would not lead to any increase in numbers or change in the flow — sparked what has become the largest wave of newcomers in our history.

With Republicans shut out of power, now is the time to take a new look at their approach to immigration, to develop a new and distinctive alternative to the majority party. In other areas, such as health care or the environment, such a reassessment might conceivably yield different policies than in the past. But on immigration, what is needed is not so much a reversal in specifics but a different framework within which to fit the specifics.

For too long the Republican story line has been “Too Much Lawbreaking,â€

If the debate focuses solely on legality, ultimately there’s no real argument against amnesty and open borders. You just legalize the whole thing and the issue goes away — no illegals, no problem. In the appropriately larger context, amnesty is bad not only because it rewards lawbreaking (which it does), but also for the same reason that the Visa lottery is bad: it leads to excessive immigration.

Excellent point. This issue is more than just "enforcing the law" as important as that is. We have to look at the overall numbers and the effects of this. Especially now with govt budgets and taxpayers stretched very thin.

Shifting or changing the context of an argument resulting in a change in paradigm........Would this work????

Excellent point. This issue is more than just "enforcing the law" as important as that is. We have to look at the overall numbers and the effects of this. Especially now with govt budgets and taxpayers stretched very thin.

It's about laws being broken and Our Taxpayer Money, to me.

If we're called anti-immigrant now for being against ILLEGAL immigration, what would the OBL-controlled media say to us being against BOTH illegal immigration and legal immigration?

I agree that illegal immigration must be stopped and legal immigration should be lowered enough to keep our population stable, but I think the OBL media would have a field day and there'd be no chance of even getting illegal immigration reduced.

Illegal immigration is the easier target and we can't even get that fixed.

I think they are making it very complicated...the laws they made in 1986 and 1996 seemed good enough for them at the time...why all of a sudden are they not good enough, because they don't want to enforce them....JUST ENFORCE THE LAWS ON THE BOOKS and E-VERIFY take away the jobs simple that is what they are here for !



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Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

I think they are making it very complicated...the laws they made in 1986 and 1996 seemed good enough for them at the time...why all of a sudden are they not good enough, because they don't want to enforce them....JUST ENFORCE THE LAWS ON THE BOOKS and E-VERIFY take away the jobs simple that is what they are here for !

Agreed. Enforce the laws on the books, secure the border and make Everify mandatory. This would solve the problem over a period of time by Attrition Through Enforcement.