Electoral Math
Reality-Based^TM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot

I got nothing. | Home |

Why are we making this harder than it really is?

I seem to be the only person on the left half of the blogosphere to have a handle on immigration. Today the folks at Liberal Oasis, and previously P&W's own Dan Munz have written that Democrats should look to the long term and not run to the right of the GOP on the issue. But, I think there is a real difference between running to the right on policy and running to the right on rhetoric. Here is my Democratic strategy on immigration:

• Fewer immigrants.
• Path to citizenship.

Hey! It even fits on a bumper sticker!

You go in front of La Raza and LULAC and say "path to citizenship" (or even "camino a ciudadanía"). You go in front of anti-immigrant groups and say "fewer immigrants". That's it, your done!

Now, the policy question that reporters will ask you will be something along the line of "how do you get fewer immigrants"? The standard answer is "more money for border patrol". Well, that may be true, but Democrats have to get past the "big spenders" label. So, let's get creative:

• Sanction Mexico if they don't devote more resources to protecting the border. [No, I have no specifics on what this would look like]
• Since Jesus is pretty en vogue these days, let's teach some men to fish; spend some money to train Mexican border patrol agents, so they can do their job better.
• Enforce laws on the employment of illegal immigrants.

And here is the attack on the Bush-Walmart "guest worker" plan:

• That's how they do things in Europe. [Convieniently, it is how they do things in Europe.]
• We shouldn't create a permanent underclass of non-citizens.
• If you don't have a chance of becoming a citizen, you're just going to work to make money; you're not going to work to make America a great country.
• In America, we say that if you enter the country legally, pay your taxes, work hard and play by the rules, you can earn the right to be a citizen.

I'm a big fan of this combination of ideas. It's clearly to the right of the GOP on border enforcement and cozying up to Mexico for the sake of cheap labor. But it's to the left of the GOP in that it maintains a path to citizenship. You will notice that I studiously avoided the question of "what do we do about the millions of illegal immigrants already in the US?", to which I don't have any great answers. But considering the Bush-Walmart plan already concedes that deporting millions of people is not a viable answer, ideas like granting Permanent Resident Alien status after paying backtaxes and a penalty seem like a practical, moderate idea.

Why am I the only one who thinks it isn't really that hard to finesse this issue? Would someone please poke holes in my rhetoric?

I should point out that, absent any sort of polling data among legal immigrants, it's not immediate obvious that this demographic would have a favorable opinion of plans that appeared soft illegal immigrants, as the Bush-Walmart plan. Now, clearly, this is the sort of thing where a good survey would be immensely valuable information.

| | technorati

Home | Mail  | RSS

Last updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 11:43 31 May 2005