The Bosque Boys

Of course, the WSJ has been inexcusably superficial, self-delusional, dismissive of history, dismissive of the both the objections and the opponents ("...anyone who calls this approach 'amnesty' has twisted the definition."), and, perhaps most stunningly, painfully naive in its reliance on the government to enforce the provisions of an immigration law, when the failure to enforce the last immigration law brought us to the present dilemma and the last immigration law was, in turn, a panic reaction to circumstances brought on by the failure to enforce the earlier predecessor law. I wince at the insincerity and naivete explicit in the WSJ's reliance on the supposed voluntary return home of immigrants to wait in line to return. Right. Sure. The payment of fines and the learning of English. Right. Sure. Border security. Right. Sure. Biometrics-based employment. Right. Sure. Verfication. Right. Sure. (Did the WSJ not notice that the bill gives Homeland Security exactly one business day to conduct this verification and, failing that, the requirement vanishes?)

Not a word about the political reality that only 26% of the country favors the bill and over 50% flatly oppose it. Where is the "will of the people?" Not a word condemning the government for standing by impotently for decades while border security and immigration policy adulterated.

I would think that the 2006 US Sentencing Commission statistics would interest your readers and inform this issue. Last year in the Middle District of Florida 26.6% of the offenders were white, 27.7% were black, and 43.9% were hispanic (pg. 188). In the Southern District of Texas 5.9% were white, 4.8% were black, and 88.7% were hispanic (pg. 199). And etc. Not a word about who these illegals are and what they are doing. Just platitude and whitewash and delusion.

But I am not disappointed in the WSJ editorial page; it is what I expected. Anyone who applauds John McCain, the premier political opportunist of our time, for his supposed political courage obviously neither has nor even recognizes political courage.

Farmer, please be clearer in your language. There may indeed be anti-immigration conservatives (a la Pat Buchanon) but most of us are anti-illegal immigrant conservatives who want to see assimilation made part of the process.

Gardener:

I take your point in re "illegal."

On the other hand, the question of "legaility" is not really at the heart of this issue.

The Immigration Laws are made by Congress as a result of beliefs in re immigration. Likewise, we can unmake them in accord with our beliefs about immigration.

This debate is about how many and who?

The "illegal" part of it is really a secondary issue.

I am for the rule of law, and I am for assimilation and cultural unity as well as diversity--but I am on the "compromise comprehensive solution" side of this debate.

I hope the WSJ accepts the terms and the debate happens. I want it because I believe that NRO will figuratively slay them.

I am pessimistic that we will see it, or if we do, not next week.

I am more optimistic that the debate will happen. I further predict that the people who agree with the WSJ before the debate will agree with them afterward and the same applies to NRO. Nevertheless, I would love to see it.

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has been forced to fire all 65 of its telephone solicitors.

There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, a fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call "amnesty" for illegal aliens.

"Every donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue," said the former employee.

See full story here: http://washtimes.com/nation...

Meanwhile, outside the fashionable corridors of Washington D.C.:

http://www.azcentral.com/co...