"Immigration control could be the issue to bring the GOP back into the majority.”

The Return of Immigration As a Wedge Issue

Editor’s Note: Contrary to popular wisdom after the 2008 elections, immigration as a wedge issue can restore Republicans to power, says a new report from The American Cause. Political scientist Angelo Falcón disputes that but says it would be unwise to dismiss The American Cause as a fringe element, either. Falcón is president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP), a policy center founded in 1982 in New York City that focuses on Latino policy issues. Immigration Matters reflects the views of leading immigration rights advocacy groups.

Pat and Bay Buchanan, Peter Brimelow, James Pinkerton and company seek to tell the Republican Party what they need to do to win back power in 2010: use immigration as a wedge issue. Through a 16-year-old outfit called The American Cause, founded by Pat Buchanan and friends, they are promoting “traditional American values” rooted in the “conservative principles of national sovereignty, economic patriotism, limited government, and individual freedom.” Hey, wait a minute, isn’t this why the Republicans lost the White House and Congress last year?

Well, they argue, that’s the Democrats and the left promoting one of those cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies (you know, when correlation does not imply causation), according to a new report, “Immigration and the 2008 Republican Defeat.” Written by The American Cause Executive Director Marcus Epstein (who also heads anti-immigration congressman Tom Tancredo’s Team America and is vice president of something modestly called Youth for Western Civilization), the report asserts that the immigration issue was, in fact, not detrimental to Republican candidates. It concludes that “immigration control could be the issue to bring the GOP back into the majority.”

For full text:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2e92f18217c84fa93c57f8fbcc03ff41




I want to believe a majority of the electorate will continue to repudiate the negative discourse on immigration and punish candidates who want to inherit Tancredo's mantle, but I do fear that Republicans will be successful generating enough fear in the community due to the current economic scenario.

The Republics don't have a leg to stand on in this area.

Many people left, its is true. But not a lot by any measure. Most of these immigrant will not find better conditions in their country of origin. Leaving is not an option.

If you do a search, you get a bunch of results.

Here's one and it's from last summer before the economy tanked:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0731/p01s03-ussc.html

There are many immigrants leaving, but I believe those are the people who came recently and have no roots in their community. There are millions of families who have been living here, undocumented for years, and have no desire to return. This country is their home for good or worst. Plus, if the economy is bad here, imagine what the reverberations are in other countries with a weaker economic structure.

You can bet that "immigration control" will definitely be an issue.

Although scapegoating immigrants is never part of the solution.

It's the largest growing voter Demographic.

The math is not with them on this one, but, um, sure, go for it.

Of course, race has nothing to do with it. It never does. Ever. White people tell me so.

Is it like those who say they are only against "illegal" immigration?

A good number of "DUers" would cheer.

I'll say it many times before and I'll say it again: Embracing "globalism" and cheap labor does not make you multicultural and tolerant and hip. It makes you an idiot. People aren't going to believe you Flat Earthers and your bullcrap about "retraining" over their lying eyes when they see American jobs either leaving the countries through outsourcing or being wage suppressed through immigration. It's possible to be supportive of the rights and dignity of immigrants while ALSO supporting protecting good jobs and wages.

supporting rights for immigrants in the US has anything to do with supporting globalism. What the GOP will try to do is paint Democrats as soft on "law-breaker's" and then link the presence of immigrants here to rising unemployment. I also don't believe people support immigration reform because it is hip. I think people understand we are talking about other human beings who are striving to build better lives for themselves and their families.

The problem is that the immigration debate has been framed as this false dichotomy where you can either be a "build a wall" xenophobe OR you embrace flooding our country with cheap labor from other countries. The corporatists have thoroughly coopted the progressive dialogue on immigration to the extent where if you dare raise the issues of wage suppression or exploitation you are shut down and told that you are a xenophobe who opposes poor people seeking a better life. Your post is a textbook example of that. To describe the people who are coming here as "striving to build better lives for themselves and their families" is a polite way of saying they are DESPERATE. They are economic refugess, coming here because they have no alternatives in an economy that was decimated by corporate trade policies. They make the ideal workforce for greedy exploitive employers: Impoverished, scared, and politically neutered. And it's ALL happening under the aegis of globalization. Most of the recent influx of undocumented immigrants from Mexico is the direct result of NAFTA.

But what is the solution you are proposing? Do we legalize the immigrants here and let them partake on the same opportunities other Americans have? If we do so in a time of economic distress, can that be seeing as working against American families and would that lead to problems for the Democratic party in the short term (I guess in the long term, the party would only be solidifying hispanic support)?

Going forward we need to do what we can to help normalize the situation in Mexico (decimated agriculture and drug cartels) and help their country to thrive so people aren't forced to come here looking for work. Institute a reasonable and fair visa system that allows more people to enter the U.S. to work but NO "guest worker" program that is nothing but a modern day bracero program, a way for employers to get legal quasi-slaves.

If the exodus keeps up, illegal immigration may not be an issue.

It will take down Obama and the Dems like a Lead Ballon

In tough economic times- they work even better.

That is why nobody has enforced any of the immigration laws for decades.

Business does not differentiate from Hispanic peasant workers and 3rd or 4th generation white American peasants.

The business oligarchy wants the cheap labor. Plus if you staff workforce with illegal immigrants they are less likely to file worker injury claims, or illegal workplace complaints.

What Republicans say about immigration and what they do is different.

Weather you let immigrants in the country or not is not the problem, the fact they are treated as a second tier citizen, because they are illegals is the problem. Make them legal, or keep them out, but don't let them in to be taken advantage of because the threat of deportation keeps them from access to justice.

:shrug: but it is one of the empty talk issues the GOP uses in campaigns.

There would be no more jobs here. It's pretty bad here right now. Contractors in our area cannot find laborers for the few remodel jobs they are able to find. Farm labor may be in short supply this summer. The schools are losing attendance based funding because many immigrants legal and illegal, have left.

The big problem with stimulus funding will be restriction of the public works jobs to citizens.

after all Bush was re-elected in 2004 which was one of the biggest mistakes ever committed by the electors

Thom Hartmann's idea.

and the hostility towards them. Whipping up ignoramuses about a non-issue would be in the GOP style, though.

The issue came out of nowhere in 2006, pushed by repukes, and they lost the House and Senate.

They kept at it and lost the presidency.

Keep it up bozo's. The Hispanic vote was always a reliable GOP bloc, until you ran them away. Keep it up.

let them keep trotting out the same old failed strategies which are supposed to 'turn' the electorate...i guess they are saving the gays, abortion and flag burning for '12

A lot of them are packing up and leaving because they'd rather be unemployed at home than unemployed here.

Drop in construction. There was a story about it in the NBC local news last week.

Contruction was God here and it is gone now. Of course, we also have that fascist buttwipe of a Sheriff here too.

that undocumented are leaving is because most people have a stereotype of the undocumented migrants as either a worker on top of a roof or a guy picking up oranges in California just to send money back home. These people maybe leaving, but there are plenty of undocumented people here who have built lives in America and have little or no ties to their home country. They will not leave.