My Take On Illegal Immigration

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Fahrenheit

Immigration now is among the top issues of concern to the American public. However, contrary to the claims of many politicians and commentators, the public does not favor a continuation of the current “enforcement only” strategy. As it turns out, the public is far more pragmatic and interested in real solutions than immigration restrictionists would like us to believe. In fact, a wide range of public opinion polls over the last year indicates that significant majorities of Americans across the political, ethnic, and geographic spectra support comprehensive reform that provides a workable, long-term solution to our nation’s broken immigration system. To be sure, those polls show that: yes, Americans want border control; yes, Americans want to halt undocumented immigration; and no, Americans do not support amnesty. But they also show that Americans don’t believe that we can or should deport 12 million undocumented workers and that Americans (a) support providing a path to citizenship for undocumented workers who pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and get to the back of the line, and (b) don’t believe that such a program constitutes amnesty.


Perhaps more instructive than opinion polling, however, were the November election results which highlighted how poorly the anti-immigration campaign rhetoric of many restrictionist candidates resonated with voters. The electoral defeats of J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf in Arizona and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania should provide a stark lesson for other politicians who might attempt to use anti-immigrant rhetoric to win votes. The aggressive restrictionist stance of these candidates held little appeal for moderate voters and drove away Latino voters, whose growing numbers and increased mobilization make them a key demographic for elections in 2008 and beyond.

Fahrenheit, please quote the sources when you are quoting someone else. Plagiarism is not a good thing