the coming immigration battle

For the next two weeks or so,it will be fun to watch the GOP go after each other on immigration,as it will be the Bush-Specter people vs the Tancredo-Sensenbrenner-Frist people on the subject of immigration. Do we have a border problem? Yes,we do. Will it be solved by rounding up 15,000,000 people and sending them back,willy-nilly,to their host nation. Hell,no!!!! It may be flawed,and I am no expert on the immigration issue,but McCain- Kennedy seems to be the only logical way to proceed on this issue. I was listening to one of the local right-wingers this morning on WTIC-AM(Hartford),Jim Vicevich,who was talking to the mayor of Danbury,Connecticut which is in the western part of the state,not far from the NY border. The mayor stated that he has an illegal problem. His police chief says that he can round em up but the INS won't follow the law and deport 'em. They both went on to the line about the reason we have an illegals problem is that illegals are willing to work for low pay,something on the order of $6.00 per hour. Vicevich and the mayor stated that if we didn't have all these illegals,we could hire Americans for $12.00 per hour. First of all,I doubt seriously that there is an illegal that makes $6.00 per hour,and if we got all the illegals out of this country,we can hire 17 year old Jimmy to wash the dishes for $12.00 an hour? If we force the business owner to hire just legal Americans,Jimmy won't be getting $12.00 per hour,because the business owner won't hire him for $12.00 but for the $6.00 per hour and laugh all the way to the bank. Using their logic,why don't we just raise the minimum wage to $12.00 an hour? We need to make sure that the racist elements of the discussion are defeated. The Dems,once again,if done right can use this issue to highlight the wingnuttia faction of the GOP,to get immigrants when they earn the right to become voters,to vote Democratic,because voting GOP go against their vested intersts,and to use this as another wedge issue against Bush and the GOP this fall.

But since have the Dems done anything right in the past?? Americans by overwhelimg margins, don't want illegals here. They will agree with Frist, Sensenbrenner and those guys before they agree with Kennedy and Mc.Cain.

At the end, they'll allow some form of amnesty, they'll promise to 'tighten border security,' and they won't really do a damn thing. Then we'll wind it up and let it run for a few more years, until we need another 'border crisis.'

Immigration is always a great political football. It gets to people emotionally and it's hard to get any real debate or new ideas on it.