Scare tactics on the border
Most Americans back citizenship for illegal migrants, but are eclipsed by a fevered minority
Michael Tomasky in Washington Monday December 3, 2007
It may not look like it much of the time, but we Americans are a fairly reasonable people. The rugged individualist streak inherited from the frontier culture cohabits in the collective soul with a civic and communal strain that started in New England and spread from there. The strong hatred of government you hear so much about is balanced by an affection (in many cases stronger than the hatred) for many of the outcomes the government makes possible, such as the delivery of a social security cheque.
Unfortunately, we’re living through an age when this commonsensical balance tends to get overshadowed by a very vocal and fevered minority. On no issue is this truer than on immigration, which figures to emerge as the leading rightwing scare issue for next year’s voting.
Earlier this year, Congress was, remarkably, fairly close to passing major immigration reform legislation, something that hasn’t happened in Washington in 20 years. The bill’s chief adherents, who had spent years working on it, were a Democrat and a Republican, Ted Kennedy and John McCain respectively. For the right, it strengthened the Mexico border with more secure fencing to keep new illegal migrants out; for the left, it offered the 12 million or so undocumented people already in the US a shot at working their way toward citizenship.
Solid majorities of my reasonable compatriots supported the bill’s main provisions. According to a New York Times poll in May, for example, 67% supported renewable visas for illegal migrants, and 62% backed the more controversial notion that those in the States for at least two years should be allowed to seek legal status.
Well, the bill died. Liberals disliked certain provisions that changed a key premise of immigration policy from family reunification to employer need. But what really did the bill in was the tsunami of anger that swept across rightwing America. This, the nativists thundered, was an amnesty bill for law-breakers. [more]