The failure of the Republican presidential field (with one notable exception) to stand with its own voters on the burning issue of our time -- mass uncontrolled and unresisted illegal immigration to America -- is one of the most infuriating examples of electoral incompetence in living memory. Not only is this issue central to the concerns of an overwhelming majority of regular Republican and conservative voters, but it is the issue most likely to carve off substantial numbers of regular Democratic voters. In short, vigorously opposing the ongoing, unprecedented, presidentially invited and abetted invasion of America across its southern border is not only obviously the right policy for the country on its merits, but very possibly the only issue with the potential to carry the Republican nominee not merely to victory but to decisive victory.
In America as in Europe, electoral necessity has placed the Left on the wrong side of illegal immigration for a perilously significant number of its own voters. In America many of those voters are there for the taking -- in Iowa, in Ohio, in Virginia, in Colorado, in Florida, to name but a few not insignificant places -- but the question, as always since Reagan, is whether the Republican Party wants to win the presidency or to lose politely.
In unmistakably blunt language, all the Republican candidates should be declaring the following:
- That our border to the south must be secured, whatever it takes, as an absolute, non-negotiable prerequisite to discussing how to deal with the tens of millions who are already here illegally. The idea that real border security is unachievable is facially absurd to the American people, as is the morally spurious argument that any nation needs to apologize for defending its own borders or establishing its own immigration criteria.
- That, after election, the new Republican president will not, under any circumstances, grant any form of blanket amnesty to those who have entered the country in violation of our laws, and that he will work to achieve a complete reversal of the illegal and unconstitutional executive amnesty already granted by President Obama (which Hillary Clinton promises to uphold and enforce).
- That our immigration laws do indeed need comprehensive reform, but not the kind of “reform” the Democrats want, where millions of impoverished uneducated future government dependents are taken in and distributed among key states until the country becomes a dependable one party nation -- the 1965 Immigration Act has indeed done its work. We need a new immigration law that will favor assimilable immigrants, possessing skills and education that improve the competitiveness of the American economy and meet real needs.
None of the foregoing should be even remotely controversial in a well run, first world republic that wants to continue being one. None of it would be controversial to about 75% of the electorate. All of it would be music to the ears, not only of virtually the entire voter base of the Republican Party but to substantial numbers of regular Democratic voters, both of whom see the connection between mass low skilled illegal immigration, on the one hand, and low wages, declining schools and neighborhoods, and increased crime on the other.
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