Immigration matters

BusinessWeek has a recent piece discussing the impact of Republican immigration positions on some portion of Republican voters. In particular, they discuss how the emphasis all the current Republican presidential candidate's place on "enforcement-only" approaches is driving some members of the "fiscal" wing of the party to re-register as Independents, or even to actively support Democrats (Oh, the humanity!).

Arizona's new law features prominently in the article:

Arizona Goes After Employers

One state where employers are becoming especially concerned is Arizona. A new state law (BusinessWeek.com, 12/13/07) scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1 will suspend for up to 10 days the operating license of any company caught knowingly employing an undocumented worker. If caught a second time, the company loses its license altogether. Business groups—including the Arizona Contractors' Assn. and an employer coalition called Wake Up Arizona—tried to fight the law on legal grounds, but their case was thrown out by a U.S. District Court. The business groups are asking for a preliminary injunction while the case is under appeal.

In the meantime, employers are looking to make a statement with their votes. "The Republican Party has held a corner of support from the business community, but the level of frustration is high," says David Jones, president and chief executive of the Arizona Contractors' Assn., which represents about 300 general subcontractors and suppliers. "They're so wrapped up in ideology that they're willing to throw anything else out the window. That's why the Democrats are starting to realize a potential friend in the Arizona business community."

The most strident advocate of the "throw the bums out" approach has recently ended his campaign, but that seems unlikely to lower the rhetoric. The Republican field seems to have decided winning the primary requires tacking waaaaaaayyyyy out to the extreme on this issue, and whoever receives the nomination is likely to find it impossible to then successfully tack back to the middle. It's not like Hispanic voters don't notice these things.

It seems so recently that conservatives would regularly accuse Democratic candidates of "catering to their extremist liberal base" or some other, similar, formulation. Now the shoe seems to be firmly on their foot, and they seem to be busily pelting said shoe with shotgun pellets.

A large majority of people prefer some form of comprehensive solution to the problem (and it is a problem), perhaps something similar to what x4mr recently proposed, or the bill which died this past summer. Particularly given the significance of the potential Hispanic votes in closely divided states (Florida, Arizona, New Mexico for example), it seems unquestionable this immigration rhetoric is hurting Republican chances (a topic ThinkRight has regularly addressed). Unless McCain somehow rallies to win the nomination, this will just be another weight around the neck of the Republican nominee.

Surge failure

No, no, not the Iraq surge ... rather, the citizenship surge.

Not surprisingly, this past summers debate on how to deal with immigrants, legal or otherwise, inspired a number of individuals to turn in their citizenship applications in hopes of
becoming citizens in time to vote in next year's elections. However, despite a large increase in the application fees, an increase allegedly intended to help develop the necessary infrastructure to speed the process along, new applicants are being told the backlog for processing is now reaching 16 to 18 months.

For those who are to lazy to count, the elections are less than 12 months away.

As the linked piece notes, this isn't a backlog due to visa limits or any other issue. This is simply a matter of not having enough people on hand to deal with the influx. Once again our "corporate administration" proves its core competency is incompetence.

A bite to choke on

The immigration bill failed in a senate vote today, 53-46. The result is not a huge surprise, although Framer, despite predicting it's ultimate failure for weeks, found the final margin to be wider than he anticipated. Kudos for him for being on top of this from the get go. In particular, he noted early on the level of Democratic unhappiness with the bill (which did not get wide media coverage), and in the end 15 Democrats voted against it.

While the bill tried to provide something for everyone to like, it ended up providing something for everyone to hate instead. The border-wall bunch hated the entire route to citizenship proposal, and were concerned the enforcement provisions in the bill would never actually be ... well ... enforced. Given our history of (not) enforcing existing provisions, you can't really say their fears were unfounded.

Liberals, meanwhile, ended up seeing the provisions for guest-workers as a means to create an underclass within the labor force. Also, I suspect (as I noted before, and Framer did as well) there was a lack of enthusiasm for Democratic lawmakers to vote for a bill the President was so openly hoping to see come up for his signature. For anyone "on the fence", throwing the President such a lifeline when his popularity is at near-historic lows would have been a strong disincentive for voting in favor of the bill.

The vote outcome itself just reinforces how weak the President's position has become -- does anyone really think if this bill had come up for a vote three years ago, it would not have passed? I would say this really hurts the Bush administration, except it's hurting so much already how much more does yest another setback, even one of this magnitude, really mean?

So the status quo remains, which everyone seems to agree is not working, but which most everyone seems to prefer to the recently scuttled alternative. Apparently everyone felt things really could get worse after all. So what's next?

X4mr suggests trying to break the bill up into smaller chucks, focusing on pieces that might be passed. I am not sure I see this as being any better though. Both sides of the debate aren't going to give something to the other side without getting something back in return, of course ... so pieces have to be tied together. "I'll trade you more border security agents for a route to citizenship" for example. The problem is, certain pieces become very intertwined -- border agents, increased capacity to hold aliens, etc., and it may not make sense to pass some parts without others ... but then if a bigger chunk for one side gets proposed, the other side demands more in return, and the whole thing becomes too big to swallow again.

So the whole thing gets tabled, for this year at least, and it's hard to see either side agreeing to anything next year, when what looks to be a very heated Presidential race moves front-and-center. I expect it will be 2009 before we see the matter seriously addressed again.

Meanwhile, maybe we can all focus on something less divisive, such as impeaching Darth Cheney.

Still more immigration

Various news outlets are reporting today the stalled immigration bill is likely to be revived, with the NY Times reporting it could be brought up again as early as next week.

Senate Leader Harry Reid had indicated, when tabling the bill last week, that he would not bring it up again unless some number of Republican votes could be guaranteed in support of it (I have seen both 15 and 25 as the number in question). President Bush was lobbying hard for the bill, including a lunch meeting on the hill with Republican leaders. I have to admit, I didn't expect much to come of it, but apparently I was wrong.

Should the bill be brought to the floor again, it still comes across as a strange alignment of interests to me. While there is opposition to the bill from all sides, the most vocal and vociferous disagreement has come from the right. There are unquestionably some number of voters on the right for whom this is the make-or-break issue, as in "if this bill gets passed I will never vote Republican again". I haven't seen anything like that level of intensity from opposition on the left.

As such, I find it interesting the President seems to feel he can ensure whatever number of votes from his party that Reid thinks he needs. I wouldn't think, given the President's low popularity numbers and the level of dissent that seems to exist amongst some Republican supporters, that Republicans would have much incentive to change their positions from the first vote. Also, as Framer at Arizona 8th has pointed out, why would Democrats be in a hurry to help an exceedingly unpopular President pass legislation he will undoubtedly characterize as a big "win" for his administration?

It's possible Dems feel the legislation is worth it, and any "win" the President might claim would be phyrric at best, given the dissension the bill's passing would cause in right-wing ranks. Who knows? It's become obvious I certainly don't.

In related matters, news is getting out the Department of Defense has requested, regardless of the fate of the overall immigration bill, that one clause contained with the bill be fast-tracked. The clause in question would provide citizenship to children of illegal immigrants (or undocumented aliens, or whatever term you want to use) who enlist in the military. This is a response to the Army and Marines once again missing their recruitment quotas last month.

Apparently enrolling in a job which, as the recruitment failures make clear, not enough citizens are willing to do, and one in which the perks include the opportunity to get shot at regularly, and have a bomb explode near your vehicle on any given day, still qualifies as "amnesty" to some in the anti-immigration crowd. Maybe if such enlistees are actually killed in combat, this group can be begrudgingly convinced to have them declared citizens posthumously.

Throwing bad money after bad

President Bush has just finished meeting with Republican Senators regarding the proposed immigration bill, which failed to get sufficient votes for cloture last week. Framer at Arizona 8th had a series of posts on the matter discussing why it failed (see his entries for June 5-7) from his perspective, and there is of course a lot of analysis elsewhere.

I have said elsewhere that, while I may not like some of the specifics of the proposed bill, I like the general outline; I.e., some mixture of enforcement, citizenship and guest-workers. It's virtually the only thing the President and I agree on (which I tell him every time he and I talk). While on some level, I appreciate his additional efforts, I just don't see how he wins from this.

The President has no political capital to spend -- he's wasted it all profligately on Iraq. As a result, his credibility and popularity are at near-record lows (Nixon saves him from bottoming out). Unlike a couple years ago, when he was flying high and everyone was looking to catch a ride on his coattails, there is no incentive whatsoever for Republican Senators to come over to his views.

Framer correctly noted there was a fair bit of liberal resistance to the bill for various reasons, but it remains true that most (or, at least, the most vocal) opposition came from conservatives screaming "amnesty" and "enforcement". With his meeting today, Bush places the Senators from his party in the position of either very publicly breaking with their President over an isue he clearly feels is important, or maintaining their current views (which seem to be popular with their base voters, at least). Given the lack of capital noted above, I'm betting the base wins. Another public defeat, on top of everything else (Iraq, prosecutors, Libby) can only weaken the administration even further.

Which brings me around to my real point -- while, in this specific case I might find myself in agreement with the President's aim, his continued mulishness in the face of dissent is just yet another symptom of an ongoing problem. Bush's determination to force through his desires, despite any opposition from Congress, despite the views of the electorate, despite foreign opinion, despite anything, has led this country to disaster.

How NOT to make a case

Framer at Arizona 8th had a post yesterday which referenced a Washington Post article, which itself referenced the recent non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates as to the potential costs and benefits of the proposed immigration bill.

The article discusses the total costs of the bill, throws out a figure of $126 billion over ten years, and is generally accurate as far as it goes. My quibbles are it what it leaves out.

The article goes into great detail to spell out the figures of what new immigrants would cost - $15.4 billion for Medicare and Medicaid, $3.7 billion for food stamps and child nutrition programs, and so on. When all is said and done the grand total (derived from actually looking at the figures in the CBO report) comes to $53.6 billion. No question, that's a big figure.

What the Post article completely fails to mention, and the reader wouldn't know unless they took the time to actually review the full CBO report, is that $53.6 billion dollar all those dern immigrants is gonna cost us is more than offset by the $65.7 billion dollars in addition federal revenue said immigrants are expected to generate. Put another way, all those folks "doing nothing but taking money from the system that should go to real Americans" are, in fact, actually expected to put $12.1 billion more into the system than they take out. (I'll save you some time -- the relevant data can be found in table 3, pages 6-7, and table 5, page 27.)

If you're going to make a case based on someone's figures, it's best to take all their figures into account. There may be many good reasons to fight the bill (Framer has a more recent post on the subject here, and I know there are reasons liberals don't like the bill either), but implying potential new immigrants will cost us money when the data you use says exactly the opposite (which is what the Post article does) is not the best approach to take.

This and That

1) Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY) has passed away following a battle with leukemia. He was 74. My sincere condolences to his family.

2) "Scooter" Libby has just been handed a 30-month sentence for committing perjury in regards to the Valerie Plame affair. The defense has been arguing for probation while federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was asking for 30-37 months. Clearly, Judge Reggie Walton sided with the prosecution in this matter. My guess is we'll see all those "rule of law" advocates on Fox talk shows screaming bloody murder about the length of the sentence -- remember, "rule of law" isn't supposed to apply to elite, Caucasian, Christian, conservative males. Just to the "little people".

Judge Walton scheduled another hearing next Thursday to address the issue of whether or not Libby can remain free on bail while appealing the decision. Typically this is not allowed in Federal cases, but this isn't a typical Federal case either. Should Libby be allowed to remain out on bail, it's extremely unlikely he would serve any actual jail time -- by the time the appeals had tun out, President Bush would be ending her term of office and would be likely to provide a pardon for his perjuring pal.

3) I know it may not be very "liberal" of me, but I don't have a real problem with the "point" system as proposed for potential immigrants.

The main objection seems to be the (lack of) weight provided for potential immigrants who have family members who are already US citizens. As things stand, out of a maximum 100 points, having a family member who is a US citizen is worth 10. Far more points are available for education, or for possessing needed job skills.

A number of people, especially Hispanics, are up in arms, and phrases like "separating families" are getting thrown about. This claim would make sense to me if there weren't provisions to extend citizenship to spouses and minor children of individuals who gain US citizenship. Frankly, we should be providing significantly more weight to, say, a candidate with a Masters degree in mechanical engineering rather than, say, a candidate who has a junior high education and no necessary job skills, but who's Uncle already happens to be a citizen.

4) A New York Times article this morning mentions the discovery of chicken bones discovered along the Pacific coast of South America that predate the arrival of Europeans. This is significant because chickens are not native to the Americas, and it had been previously thought chickens were likely not introduced prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in the late 1400's.

A minority had argued chickens were instead introduced to the New World by earlier Polynesian travelers, and this new finding strongly bolsters that view. The bones (and some associated pottery shards) date between 1304 and 1424.

It had been known since Thor Heyerdahl navigated the Kon Tiki from South America to Polynesia in 1947 that trans-Pacific journeys between the two cultures were at least theoretically possible, but apparently this is the first firm archaeological evidence for contact between them.