Immigration Rex

Linda Chavez has been generally out of step with her colleagues in the Republican Punditocracy on Immigration, and her latest article mourns the death of the Immigration Reform Bill.

Immigration reform is dead. But before conservatives who killed this bill start popping champagne corks, they ought to consider the following.

Our borders will be less secure, not more. Employers who want to do the right thing and only hire legal workers won't have the tools to do so. The 12 million illegal aliens who are here now will continue to live in the shadows, making them less likely to cooperate with law enforcement to report crimes and less likely to pay their full share of taxes. In other words, the mess we created by an outdated and ill-conceived immigration policy 20 years ago will just get worse.

All of that is pretty undeniable. She also points out that this increases the possibility that Democrats will write eventual immigration reform (if they pick up wider majorities in 2008 and the White House, for example). That sounds like good news to me, but what do I know.

I admit to being no expert on Immigration. I do know that this Immigration bill pissed off a lot of people I don't like; people like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others. Part of me says that if Ann Coulter is against it, well, I should be for it. On the other hand, many smart liberals are also against it. So I don't know whether killing the immigration bill is a good thing or a bad thing.

Linda Chavez's readers at Townhall seem to be more in the Limbaugh Hannity camp than hers. I particularly like this comment by BIGbelly.

Hey Linda, my question to you is, What happens to Americans when they get caught in Latin American countries breaking the law?
Because as you well know with this Pyrrhic Victory it makes us all racist, jesus forbid I sneak over the border to check out the babe and her horse in Tijuana and accidently runs over Vincente Fox's rose bed.

Couldn't have said it worse myself.