Immigration Is No Joke
By John Fonte
National Review online

In 2006 something extraordinary happened in immigration politics. As Al Gore might put it, the people defeated the powerful. The much-maligned Republican 109th Congress passed immigration-enforcement legislation to build a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border, without including an amnesty for illegal immigrants. President Bush has declared he will sign the bill today. How did this happen?

One year ago elites had crafted a much different scenario. It was going to be amnesty for 12 million illegal immigrants, a massive increase in legal (and low-skilled) immigration accompanied by tepid and cosmetic “enforcement” measures.

It appeared to be a very uneven contest. On the “comprehensive” reform (i.e., amnesty) side were the mainstays of power, money, and polite society: Big Media (the major TV networks, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal), Big Business (Chamber of Commerce, leading corporations), Big Labor (AFL-CIO), Big Religion (the mainstream Protestant and Catholic hierarchies), and Big Politics (Bush administration, Senator McCain, the Senate leadership, Senator Kennedy, and the Democratic leaders in both houses).

On the other side of this strange, but real and inverted, class war were radio talk-show hosts; individual business people; most rank and file union workers; most average church parishioners (in high-church as well as low-church congregations); the majority of House Republicans (92 percent), and the majority of Senate Republicans (59 percent). But, most significantly, the anti-amnesty side also included the vast majority of the American people. According to Rasmussen, 67 percent preferred enforcing existing law and controlling the border “before new reforms are considered,” and Zogby reported that 64 percent preferred the House bill over the Senate bill.

In December 2005 the House passed the Sensenbrenner-King “enforcement first” bill that provided for a 700 mile border fence, allowed local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, and rejected amnesty. In June 2006 the Senate passed legislation (supported by McCain, Kennedy, Reed, and Hagel) that would give amnesty to most illegal immigrants, vastly increase legal immigration for low-skilled workers, and, incredibly, restrict local police from working with federal immigration agents to stop terrorism.

For example, under the Senate bill local police could not check the immigration status of a potential terrorist who was stopped for speeding. Four of the 9/11 terrorists who were in the U.S. illegally were stopped for speeding, but their immigration status was never checked and reported to federal agents. To their credit, most Senate Republicans opposed the Senate bill. These Republicans include many up for reelection this year: Santorum (Pa.), Talent (Mo.), Allen (Va.), Burns (Mont.), Ensign (Nev.), and Kyl, (Ariz.).

You can read the rest here.

To get an idea of what may happen if th eelection turns out much of the media wants…see how Harry Reid, the Dem leader in the U.S. Senate thinks:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on the Senate floor last week that an amendment to make English the national language of the United States was “mean-spirited,” “divisive” and worse.

“I really believe this amendment is racist,” said Reid. “I think it is directed basically to people who speak Spanish.”