It’s Not Over Until It’s Over On Illegal Immigration

28 Dec, 2006 by John Hawkins

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Just a little follow-up to my Human Events column from yesterday.

Many people are presuming that an amnesty bill is good as through Congress now that the Democrats have taken over. They may be right. After all, the average Democrat is as bad on the issue as the worst offenders on the right, like George Bush and John McCain.

However, it’s not over until it’s over and there are a few reasons to think that amnesty isn’t a foregone conclusion.

For one thing, after the beating the GOP took in 2006, in part because of George Bush, very few Republicans are going to be voting for an immigration package (or anything else for that matter) out of loyalty to W. At this point, they owe him nothing. Moreover, with the Democrats taking an amnesty bill that was pretty odious to start with and making it more liberal, the chances of a filibuster are going to go up considerably.

Also, in the House, you’ve got to consider that a lot of the Democrats who won in 2006 are going to have a hard decision to make. Many of them are in Republican leaning districts, most of them talked very tough on illegal immigration during the campaign, and they know that next time around in 2008, they’re probably not going to have the same kind of advantage that Democrats had in 2006. Do they really want to hand their opponents in 2008 a club to beat them with? My guess is that for most of them, the answer is, “no.” So, it’s possible that the House Republicans might be able to form a coalition with those Democrats to block an amnesty bill.

Long story short, the odds have gotten longer, but the amnesty crowd hasn’t won yet. And, in two years, if we’re lucky, we can put a President in the White House who understands that flooding this country with perhaps as many (after chain migration) as 50 million uneducated, non-English-speaking day laborers is going to make this country a worse place to live, not a better one.