Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Chertoff: Send the Illegals Back
Hmmm. Chertoff stepped into it a bit here...illegal immigration is by no means a safe topic for Republicans these days. You have the Bush-ites who want to create the guest worker program, and you have the die-hard isolationists who are supporting people like the Minutemen, so I'm not sure what compelled Chertoff to present this point of view - especially when it's at odds with his boss's views:"Return every single illegal entrant -- no exceptions," Chertoff said in prepared testimony to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on proposals to overhaul the immigration system.
Chertoff was joined by Labor Secretary Elaine Chao in presenting administration views on the illegal immigrant problem. He said President Bush remains committed to a comprehensive approach including gaining control of the border, enforcing workplace laws and establishing a temporary worker program.
Am I the only one who sees a contradiction there? Seal the border, round up the illegals working today, return them all, and, oh yeah, create a system so they can stay? What exactly is their message? I'm intrigued to see how they can defend this as internally consistent.
The truth is, they can't - Bush is going to defend whatever is economically advantageous to his constituents - Big Business - and there is absolutely no way they're going to give up all that cheap labor. I think this is just pandering to the Minutemen-like wing of the Republican party...again, attempting to be all things to all people. We've seen how well that's worked for them.
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Yeah, this immigration thing is being somewhat whipped up as an issue, which I would guess would be used as kind of a soft bigotry issue to get certain people out to the polls for an unspecified election sometime in the future.
The interesting thing about the immigration issue is that it travels right down a faultline in the republican party coalition.
On one hand, you've got the financial backers, the big business side of the party who want lots of illegal workers to keep wages low.
On the other hand, you've got the rank and file who are "law and order" people believe the flag draped propaganda of the party.
It's gonna be an issue for the republicans, like abortion, where the party leaders say there going to do something about it, to please the base, then not actually do anything about it.