Activists foiled as interest wanes on national stage
By Howard Witt Chicago Tribune March 23, 2008
Houston - Illegal Immigration, a hot-button populist issue that many experts had expected to top the nation's political concerns this year, has largely vanished from the presidential campaign amid waning interest from voters and mounting delays in constructing a 670-mile border fence between the United States and Mexico.
Moreover, primary results and opinion polls in recent months indicate that the Republican Party's emphasis on a crackdown against illegal immigrants may be driving many Hispanic voters-a crucial electoral bloc in November's election - into the Democratic fold.
"For any candidates anywhere in the country, I don't think it's demonstrated that combating illegal Immigration is an issue that controls people's votes," said David Hill, a leading Republican pollster in Houston who has termed illegal Immigration a "dud issue" for his party. "Immigration is unlike health care or the economy, both of which have a more intimate impact on people's lives."
At the presidential level, the three remaining contenders have little to debate on the topic. Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all essentially agree on the need for an overhaul of U.S. Immigration law that would combine increased border enforcement with a new guest-worker program and measures to permit the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country to eventually apply for citizenship.
At the presidential level, the three remaining contenders have little to debate on the topic. Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all essentially agree on the need for an overhaul of U.S. Immigration law that would combine increased border enforcement with a new guest-worker program and measures to permit the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country to eventually apply for citizenship.
Members of Congress tried and failed, in 2006 and 2007, to enact such Immigration reforms, some of them co-sponsored by McCain and Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy. The initiatives were derailed by strong grass-roots opposition to provisions that many conservatives regarded as amnesty for foreigners who have broken American Immigration laws.
Now, however, anti-Immigration activists, chagrined that their issue is sputtering at the national level as American voters turn their attention to the faltering economy, are resigning themselves to the likelihood that the next occupant of the White House, either Democrat or Republican, may well try to resurrect an Immigration compromise.
Instead, they are redoubling their efforts to pass laws at the state and local level that aim to identify and isolate illegal immigrants; deny them jobs, apartments or public services; and restrict the use of Spanish or other languages by government agencies or officials. More than 1,500 such laws were introduced last year in state legislatures across the country. In the first two months of this year, 350 more Immigration-related measures were put forward.
"You have to expect reversals or lulls in this business, and this may be another lull," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. "But in no way does this suggest that the moment has passed and it's all over. It's still a big issue at the state level, and it will still be an issue in congressional elections."
Others are fine-tuning their message, emphasizing what they regard as the economic harm illegal immigrants cause.
"Immigration this year is probably less an issue of national security, though it will continue to accelerate to be an economic issue," said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "We have certainly taken the tack of explaining how having 12 million illegal immigrants in the country is displacing jobs, costing localities extra social service money and compounding an already deteriorating economic situation."
For their part, Immigration reformers say the victory of the more moderate McCain over several Republican primary rivals who favored strict Immigration crackdowns proves that the campaign against illegal immigrants has backfired.
"The whole point of the hard-core anti-immigrant stance was to galvanize Republican voters and turn them out," said Cecilia Munoz, senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a leading Hispanic civil rights group. "It did not galvanize the voters who were the intended targets, but it sure galvanized Latino voters. We have tripled our electoral turnout this year."
Those who advocate normalizing the status of illegal immigrants also are pleased that the controversial plan to construct 670 miles of new fencing between the U.S. and Mexico by the end of 2008 has run into obstacles and delays. Fence critics hope that the next administration in Washington will rethink the $1.2 billion project.
All three presidential candidates voted for the fence law in Congress, although Clinton and Obama seemed to back away from the idea during the primary campaign in Texas, where the fence is bitterly opposed by many property owners whose lands lie in its path and face potential condemnation. Some of those Texas landowners have managed to block or delay federal surveyors in court.
Meanwhile, a 28-mile test section of "virtual fencing" in Arizona-a complex network of cameras, radars and sensors deployed on towers along the border-recently was criticized by the Government Accountability Office, a watchdog arm of Congress.
The pilot project "resulted in a product that did not fully meet user needs," Richard Stana, a GAO official, told a House subcommittee last month. He also said the project's design "will not be used as the basis" for future development of virtual fences and that deployment would be delayed up to three years.
Officials of the federal Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for building the fence, disputed the GAO report and insisted that the virtual fence is working as intended.
Critics disagree.
"The reality is this isn't a problem that's going to be solved by real fences or virtual fences," said Angela Kelley, director of the Immigration Policy Center, a pro-Immigration Washington think tank. "The answer lies in coming to terms with the fact that we have very limited avenues for people to come to this country legally, so as a result we have an enormous undocumented population."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-immigration-fence_wittmar 24,1,4645522.story
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