Obama's Last-Ditch Push for Immigration Amnesty

In the post-election "lame duck" session of Congress, Obama and the Democrats will focus on jobs, jobs, jobs. ... Oh, wait, no. They'll focus on passing a big amnesty for illegal immigrants, in order to reward their Latino "base"--which was only 8 percent of the national vote but supposedly cares with something approaching monomania about amnesty (despite evidence that Hispanic American opinion is shifting against illegal immigration). ... When did the Democrats' African-American base--11 percent of the vote--get that kind of service? ...

P.S.: ABC News calls the bill in question--the so-called DREAM Act--a "small piece of immigration legislation." But later in ABC's report, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a key supporter who met with Obama Tuesday, said, "We cannot squander this opportunity to save a million kids." How is amnesty for "a million kids" a "small" piece of legislation? And that's not counting the family members of that million kids who are likely to be legalized, formally and informally, as a result of the bill. ...

P.P.S.: DREAM would basically legalize illegal immigrants who can claim they came into the country when they were under the age of 16, and who have enrolled in a college or joined the U.S. military. Many of these people are appealing cases, having been brought across the border when they were infants. They present a short-run vs. long-run dilemma familiar to the one posed by welfare, where the issue is: do you give cash aid to poor single mothers, many of them also appealing beneficiaries, if that means giving an incentive that might produce social disaster in the future (more women becoming single mothers without a means to support their children)? In this case, do we show compassion for immigrants brought here unlawfully by their parents, even if that means encouraging millions of other parents, now residing in other countries, to come to the country illegally in the hope that their children will also become legal U.S. residents (and eventually citizens)?

As with welfare, I  favor avoiding long-term disaster. If the borders were secure enough that the powerful incentives to illegal immigration created by DREAM didn't matter--because illegals couldn't get in--then it would be easy to take care of the appealing hardship cases used as the poster children for DREAM.  But would be an "enforcement first" approach, derided by Rep. Gutierrez and DREAM supporters. ...

P.P.P.S.: DREAM has of course been drafted to be far broader than advertised--see the bottom of this lengthy post. ...

Update: Even pro-DREAM Will Wilkinson agrees that "the DREAM Act also incentivises illegal activity." But he argues that there are insufficient legal options for poor Mexicans who want to work in the U.S.. Well, then let's create some expanded legal options for those now waiting outside the country, instead of "incentivising" another wave of uncontrolled illegality, leading to another amnesty, which invites another wave, which leads ...

Heather Mac Donald notes that DREAM's direct beneficiaries, once they're legalized on the grounds that they aren't responsible for their parents' sins, will then be able to turn around and legalize those parents. If you smuggle your kid across the border, that's not only a ticket to legal U.S. residence for your kid--incentive enough--but for you too. ...  3:21 a.m.

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"Harry Reid owes his political life to Latinos in Nevada, and in my view he owes a debt," says strategist Ana Navarro. Does the Senate majority leader really owe his victory to Latinos? Not if you believe the exit polls showing that Reid got 64 percent of the Latino vote, compared with 33 percent for Sharron Angle. Since the Latino vote was 15 percent of an electorate of about 720,000, that translates into a voting advantage of 69,161 to 35,661 among Latino voters--or an advantage of 33,500 votes. Reid won by more than 40,000 votes. In other words, if every single Latino in Nevada had stayed home Nov. 2, Reid would still have beaten Angle by about 7,000. (No wonder the group Latino Decisions is pressing so hard to discredit the exit poll, claiming that Reid in fact won 90 percent of Latinos.) ... 3:20 a.m.

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