Poll Shows Low Support for Amnesty
“A new poll shows that only 11 percent of likely voters strongly back a conditional amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants, while 39 percent of the voters strongly favor the immigrants’ gradual return to their home countries,” the Daily Caller says.
“The poll clashes with results from other polling companies, some of which show apparently much higher support for letting illegal immigrants stay in the country.”
Rove: Obama Should Let Congress Lead on Amnesty
“There was rare good news from Washington last week, as eight senators—four from each party—announced a ‘Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.’ The so-called Gang of Eight proposed a ‘tough but fair path’ to citizenship for undocumented immigrants that would commence only after the federal government secured the borders and put in place systems to prevent foreigners from overstaying their visas and to help employers verify that any new hires are legal,” says Karl Rove.
“To resolve this issue, Mr. Obama should play it low-key. In this instance, unlike in foreign policy, the president ought to lead from behind. That means supporting the framework agreed to by members of Congress, not insisting on his own. That should be easy enough. After all, Mr. Obama hasn’t offered a concrete immigration proposal for four years. It would be good if he didn’t try now.”
Rubio Tries to Clarify Plan in New Interview
“Weekly Standard‘s John McCormack interviews Sen. Marco Rubio, who offers a defense for putting quick legalization (of currently unlawful immigrants) ahead of guaranteeing that border enforcement mechanisms–like the E-Verify system for checking new hires–are in place,” says Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller.
“Any amnesty bill will that can pass will have a cutoff date–say March 1, 2013–after which you aren’t allowed to sneak into the country and claim an amnesty. You’ll have to prove you were here before then through purchase receipts or other evidence, which some people who “rush” in after March 1 will try to falsify.”
“Under Rubio’s plan, apparently, there would be a second cutoff–say a year after the first cutoff–after which even those illegals who were here before March 1 couldn’t obtain their ‘probationary legal status’ even if they’d qualified.”
Victor Davis Hanson: Our Incoherent Immigration Policy
“Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up. Conservative corporate employers still support the idea of imported, cheap, non-union labor — in a strange alliance with liberal activists who want the larger blocs of Latino voters that eventually follow massive influxes from Latin America. Yet how conservative are businesses that in the past flouted federal law — and how liberal are activists who undermined the bargaining power of American minimum-wage, entry-level workers, many of them minorities?” says Victor Davis Hanson.
“The politics of immigration are just as weird. Democrats, buoyed by the two election victories of Barack Obama, now welcome large pools of new Latino citizens to vote en bloc for Democratic candidates. But if the border were actually closed and immigration were once again handled through a legal, systematic process, then in time Latinos — in the pattern of Greek, Italian, and Armenian Americans — would follow most other ethnic minorities and decouple their ethnic allegiances from politics.”