CE Week #11: “Immigration a vital ‘08 issue”
Michael Barone
U.S. News & World Report
November 6, 2007
October 2007 may turn out to be the month that immigration became a key issue in presidential politics. It hasn’t been, at least in my lifetime.
The Immigration Act of 1965, which turned out to open up America to mass immigration after four decades of restrictive laws, wasn’t one of the Great Society issues Lyndon Johnson emphasized in 1964. The Immigration Act of 1986, which legalized millions of illegal immigrants but whose border and workplace provisions have never been effectively enforced, was a bipartisan measure unmentioned in the debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.
There was no perceptible difference on immigration between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000. Both favored a comprehensive bill with legalization and guest-worker provisions. John Kerry in 2006 and 2007 voted for immigration bills along the lines supported by Bush.
Now, things look different. In the Democratic debate on Oct. 30, Tim Russert demanded to know whether Hillary Clinton supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s policy of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. The forthright answer: yes and no. A clarifying statement by the Clinton campaign later in the week did not much clarify things: a hedged yes. It was one of several issues on which Clinton seemed to take calculating and ambiguous nonpositions. But it is one that may have major reverberations in the presidential campaign – and in congressional races, as well.
The reason is that the Democrats – and Bush – are out of line with public opinion on the issue. That became clear as the Senate debated a comprehensive immigration bill in May and June. Most Republicans and many Democrats, in the Senate and among the public, turned against the bill. Supporters of the bill tended to ascribe that to something like racism: They just don’t like having so many Mexicans around.
But if you listened to the opponents, you heard something else. They want the current law to be enforced. It bothers them that we have something like 12 million illegal immigrants in our country. It bothers them that most of the southern border is unfenced and unpatrolled. It bothers them that illegal immigrants routinely use forged documents to get jobs – or are given jobs with no documents at all.
You don’t have to be a racist to be bothered by such things. You just have to be a citizen who thinks that massive failure to enforce the law is corrosive to society.
That was apparent to me as I listened to a focus group of Republican voters in suburban Richmond, Va., conducted by Peter Hart for the Annenberg School of Communications. One voter after another complained that the immigration laws were not being enforced. None of them made any derogatory remarks about Latino immigrants – two said they admired how hard they work. They don’t want to see Latinos banished from this country. They want the immigrants here to be here legally.
Which leaves Democratic politicians and political candidates out on a pretty flimsy limb. Most of them reflexively back a comprehensive bill, and some of them (like Bush and a number of Republicans backing such a bill) have dismissed opponents as racists.
Most Democrats have also been backing bills extending various benefits to illegal immigrants, like the Dream Act for college education for illegals brought over as children. There are appealing arguments for such bills. But most voters reject them. And most voters certainly reject driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. That was one of the issues that led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in California in 2003.
The Republican presidential candidates have taken note. Only John McCain, a longtime backer of a comprehensive bill, stands apart, and he concedes that voters are demanding tougher enforcement. In the special congressional election in Massachusetts on Oct. 5, the Republican was able to hold the Democrat to 51 percent by stressing immigration as one of his two top issues.
Other Republicans are likely to echo that theme next fall. And the Democratic presidential nominee (unless Chris Dodd gets the nod) is going to have to explain why she or he believes it’s a good idea to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses.
The last several Democratic nominees could have said that they’re just taking the same position as their Republican opponent. The 2008 nominee won’t be able to say the same of hers or his (unless McCain gets the nod).
“The centrality of illegal immigration to the current discontent about the direction of the country may be taking us back again to a welfare moment,” write the shrewd Democratic strategists James Carville and Stanley Greenberg. Yup.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://pkautzman.edublogs.org/2007/11/07/ce-week-11-immigration-a-vital-08-issue/trackback/
I would just like to start off by saying that while I am not thrilled that we have such a high rate of illegal immigration into the U.S., I do believe that at this point, there is not a whole lot that we can do about it. Now, immigrants are ingrained into our country mainly through its economy, something we simply cannot ruin because some people are extremely racist.
That being said, I absolutely DO NOT support letting illegal immigrants get drivers licenses. This is not a racist issue at all. Evidence has shown that there have been a large amount of illegal drivers in this country that a) have no license, and b) have killed a lot of people with their driving methods. There are stories from people in California that have had family members killed by drunk illegal drivers, and really, there is nothing that the government can do about it except deport the offender. Now, in the state of Washington, residents who want to get their driver’s licenses (especially teenagers) must take a driver’s education class, and pass a written, and driving test. Not only that, but we must provide identification and some sort of proof of citizenship. Now, how are illegals supposed to a) read the tests, or b) provide proof of citizenship? They don’t have any!!! Why would it be a good idea to let them have driver’s licenses but not citizenship? It isn’t. And I would dearly love to hear the Democratic response on why these licenses should be allowed.
>
~Liz
We all saw this coming. Immigration we knew was going t is a big issue for this presidential race. And it should be. This is a huge problem in American. Now they want to give illegal immigrants the license to drive. I say no way. So they are illegal and don’t want to get caught so just give the m licenses so when they hit us they don’t have car insurance and we’ll have to pay for it. By giving them their license you are giving them a right and a reason to stay. They are called illegal immigrants because they don’t belong to this country why give them right and thing that they haven’t earned.
Most of the democratic candidates have the same stance on that we should give them their license. The senate at the beginning of the year turned down an immigration bill. Both parties had an agreement that they should get these rights. They didn’t want to sound racist, but there are to many Mexican in our country. Yes this does sound racist, but we need to control the problem. It thinks that if these immigrants have something to offer to our country then they should be a lowed to stay legally.
It is true that there are a too many illegal immigrants, but really there’s nothing that we can do about it now. It would be impossible to deport 20 million immigrants back to their home country, without any problems or even easily. Some people think that giving these illegal immigrants licenses will help keep our roads safe, or at least, safer. I have to say that I agree with the fact that it would make our roads safer, but in reality, how many illegal immigrants are going to go get their license? They would have to show some sort of identification and legalization, which would only mean risking the possibility of them getting caught. I also don’t understand the thought behind not wanting to legalize these immigrants, but wanting them to get licenses. I would think that in order for the immigrants to get a license, the government would want them to be legalized first. It seems to me that a driver’s license is more of a privilege to those who are citizens of our country and if an illegal immigrant would ever want a driver’s license they should work towards becoming a citizen first. Again, I still don’t think that even if it were provided very many immigrants would get a driver’s license, but I don’t even think it should be allowed.