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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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THE SIGN OF 3 Roman Emperor Constantine supposedly saw the sign of the cross in a vision just before a great battle with the Italians in AD 312. On the cross, which appeared as a pillar of light in the sky, he saw the words “In hoc signo vince” (by this sign conquer). Constantine won the battle and subsequently converted to Christianity – taking his empire with him into the new faith. Excepting Louis Farrakhan’s vision of the “mother wheel”, heavenly signs are out of fashion these days. But some politicians might have seen the Sign of 3 last week. That’s 3, as in 3rd –party, that is. I theorize that several Republican senators have had nightmares, not visions, of conservative voters forming a third party to oppose illegal immigration. With a large part of their conservative base gone, Republicans could fall into minority status and gradually dwindle away, as the Whigs did after Republicans supplanted them in 1860. Illegal immigration is driving the country crazy. Politicians have ignored it, but it just won’t go away. In recent weeks millions of illegal residents and their sympathizers have demonstrated in American cities to protest the December passage of a tough border-protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration control act by the House of Representatives. The bill calls for: enlisting local law enforcement and military help to stop illegal entries; requiring employers to verify workers’ status; and building a fence along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border. (No provision was included for normalizing the status of the 12-20 million illegal immigrants currently in the country.) Some analysts say the demonstrations were “warning” the Senate not to endorse the House legislation. If so, the warning went too far. The demonstrators lacked (as Sherlock Holmes once remarked) “… the knowledge of when to stop”. Orderly, respectful demonstrations of immigrant workers, housewives, and children – which might have been effective – degenerated into wild-eyed, Mexican-flag-waving crazies yelling into microphones that they “have a right to be here”. Some Colorado school principals, who incautiously let students skip classes to attend the rallies, later banned all flags – including American flags – from their schools. This produced a roar of fury from parents and students already outraged by the ostentatious displays of the Mexican flag. The situation is spinning out of control. Only recently the Illegal-immigrant-legalization Bandwagon was chugging serenely through the Senate. A bipartisan coalition of senators – including Democrat Edward Kennedy and Republicans John McCain (Arizona), Chuck Hagel (Nebraska) and Mel Martinez (Florida) – had the wheel. Polls showing that 60% of Americans want less immigration, and over 80% want borders stabilized before any illegals are normalized, were airily waved aside. The senators knew best. By April 7 a “compromise” bill was poised for passage. An earlier Senate bill would have permitted illegal immigrants already here for more than two years to apply for citizenship after paying a $2,000 fine. When that bill was defeated, 60-39 (April 6), a compromise bill emerged allowing only illegals here more than five years to request legalization. Those eligible could remain in the USA while applying for legal status. Democrats supported the compromise, urging a “clean” bill – i.e., no contentious amendments. But sharp-eyed Republican Senators and staffers saw no provision for screening criminal aliens. When Democrats refused to allow such an amendment, the compromise collapsed. Senators headed for a two-week Easter break without having agreed to an immigration reform bill. President Bush has been insisting for weeks, if not months, on “comprehensive” immigration reform legislation, saying he would veto any bill without it. (The threat seemed a little hollow, since Mr. Bush hasn’t vetoed anything in his 5+ years in office.) The House didn’t deliver, but the “world’s greatest deliberative body” thought they could. Everything would work out splendidly with that famous senatorial comity. Then the bandwagon ran into something senators had forgotten about: American voters. (And there was that pesky Sign of 3.) Democrats do not have nightmares about “3”. They are sure of their base and they know where they stand on illegal immigration: they want the door propped open – really, they want it removed – and they want complete legalization of all who sneak in. Democrats expect the mostly Hispanic new voters to come disproportionately to their camp. The biggest problem Dems face is how to strike a credible pose as guardians of American security while holding the gates wide open. Republicans are split, however. Their conservative base insists that the borders must be sealed ahead of any other measures. They fear that an “amnesty” – even if otherwise named – will only encourage more illegals to sneak in. Prior experience validates that fear. The 1986 amnesty legalized 3 million illegals. Our leaders fervently promised enhanced border-control, but they welshed. Now we have at least 12 million more illegals. If we legalize them, conservatives say, we could have 40 million more in another twenty years. The flood must be controlled. GOP elites – including Mr. Bush and several senators – want to give resident illegals “guest worker” status, as a first step toward citizenship. “Yeah, yeah, yeah – we’ll control the borders,” they say. “Trust us.” But conservatives will accept no more “promises”. (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.) Perhaps senators and congressmen will receive tough wisdom from their constituents over Easter, but as it stands now, no new illegal immigration legislation looks possible for the near future. I am not the first to notice that new legislation is not really needed to control the borders. It is already illegal to sneak into the country or to overstay a visa. The dirty secret is that enforcement of current law has been lax because powerful factions don’t want illegal immigration controlled. Businessmen, educators and politicians are the “unholy trinity” who find advantage in keeping the illegals coming. Journalists – confident that their jobs (and wages) will never be impacted by illegal workers – have been encouraged to think of illegal immigration as a civil rights issue in which “the enlightened ones” are battling a rabble of ignorant, racist xenophobes. “We can’t catch all of them,” is a common refrain. That’s right. We can’t catch every border-jumper. We can’t catch every thief, either, but that doesn’t mean we quit trying. Millions of ordinary Americans see our porous borders and non-enforcement as fundamentally intolerable. They are seething with resentment as their communities and states are going broke paying for illegals’ education and social services. In an earlier article (“ When the Dream Becomes a Nightmare: Reliving Prohibition” – http://www.ahherald.com/atlarge/2003/031030_prohibition.html) I compared illegal immigration with illegal booze of the 1920s. The difference is that this time the government has given up on enforcement. We’re just going through the motions. Republicans have been tossing illegal immigration around like a hot potato, but have done nothing substantial to assure their base. It’s like watching someone juggle nitroglycerin. Sooner or later the stuff is bound to go off. Just so, sooner or later conservatives will get fed up about the illegals and will stay home on Election Day – or will bolt to a new party. The nitro will go off. When that happens, Democrats could roll to a big win and retake the Congress. They might elect a president, enabling them to nominate judges and Supreme Court justices. They could bring back the New Deal, raise taxes and legalize everybody. Like Russian Social Democrats after the Bolshevik Revolution, Republican leaders will spend years wondering what happened. What won’t have changed is that illegals will still be pouring across our borders in huge numbers. There will be no pretense of stopping them.
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