Bush Rushes to Surrender Southern Border

It should come as no surprise that a freshly re-elected President Bush is moving to revive his 2003 immigration proposal to "relax the rules against illegal immigration." When the president unveilled his plan last year, it fell like lead on the Senate floor, with GOP Senators scurrying out of the way lest they be tainted by it. Leading Republican Senators quickly declared the president's plan dead on arrival, sparring the president's re-election effort from a self-imposed hatchet wound to the head. But it appears that President Bush continues to stand behind the idea that the U.S. doesn't deserve borders and that any Mexican who wishes may come across the border to poach employment from the failing grasp of some worthless American worker.

"We are formulating plans for the legislative agenda for next year," said White House political strategist Karl Rove. "And immigration will be on that agenda."
He added: "The president had a meeting this morning to discuss with a significant member of the Senate the prospect of immigration reform. And he's going to make it an important item."
While the president was huddling with Mr. McCain, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was pushing the plan during a visit to Mexico City.

Not all Republicans, however, are eager to embrace the annhilation of American culture and the demise of the nation's borders.

But key opponents in Congress said Mr. Bush's proposal isn't going anywhere.
"An amnesty by any other name is still an amnesty, regardless of what the White House wants to call it," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
"Their amnesty plan was dead on arrival when they sent it to the Congress in January, and if they send the same pig with lipstick back to Congress next January, it will suffer the same fate," he said.
With the House and Senate already clashing over border security and deportation provisions in the pending intelligence overhaul bill, some Capitol Hill aides said it's almost impossible that Congress could agree on a broader immigration proposal.

Hilariously, some experience surprise at the president's move:

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said he "suddenly went from calm to stressed out" after learning of the president's renewed push for immigration relaxation.
He predicted the plan would continue to meet vigorous opposition from House Republicans.
"If the House wouldn't deliver this bill before the guy's election, when he claimed he needed it for the Hispanic vote, why would they deliver it after the election, when their constituents overwhelmingly oppose it?" he said. "Why would House leaders follow the president over a cliff?"

On what planet does Mr. Stein live? If the president was willing to propose relaxing border control via a stealth amnesty after September 11, 2001, how could anyone misjudge his intentions? The president isn't moving this proposal along because it's some slick, calculated ploy for Latino votes - he actually believes in this.

Mr. Stein said Mr. Bush is already a "lame duck president" whose proposal "has no credibility." He expressed astonishment that the president resurrected the plan before pushing other second-term agenda items, like tax simplification or Social Security privatization.
"There's a sense of obstinacy in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's a losing approach," he said. "I mean, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result."

But the White House has a completely different agenda and outlook:

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president wants to "provide a more humane treatment" of illegal aliens from Mexico.
"America has always been a welcoming society, and this is a program that will match willing workers with willing employers," he said. "It will promote compassion for workers who right now have no protection."
He added of Mr. Bush: "It's something that he intends to work with members on to get moving again in the second term. It's something he believes very strongly in."

Yes, it's the Mexican illegals who evoke compassion and concern from this administration - not the American workers who will see their wages collapse from new inflows of immigrants desperate for employment at any price - and certainly not the millions of Americans who will feel less and less at home in their own country as they hear Spanish spoken in every store and restaurant and on the street and as Spanish-language radio and TV stations fill the air. But their views don't really matter anyway. Only the immigrants do. That's why there will never be a popular referendum on the issue - and why any statewide iniatives like the recent ballot in Arizona will be contested by the federal government. What Americans want doesn't matter. Americans no longer count in Washington DC.

If conservatives find themselves astonished by this turn of events, they have only themselves to blame. President Bush has repeatedly broadcast his position on immigration, just as he has betrayed virtually every other conservative principle from fiscal responsibility to avoiding Wilsonian international adventures. But conservatives flocked to the polls to re-elect a man whom they liked, even at the price of everything they once believed. They have only themselves to blame for what is to come.

Like Europe, America has now embarked on the wholesale importation of massive numbers of people who do not share its language, customs or culture. The result can only be economic dislocation, burgeoning native resentment and concommitent ethnic and cultural balkanization as many of the new immigrants settle in communities of their peers and see no reason to assimilate into the broader culture.