Republicans going after Barack Obama’s job are making a big mistake by embracing the illegal immigration issue. The question of what to do with millions of illegals has plagued Mr. Obama from his earliest vows to deliver a path to citizenship. Why are Republican contenders following in his footsteps, and why are they permitting illegal immigrants to become a focus of dissent within the GOP?
Even with a two-year Democratic majority the president was unable to make good on campaign vows to immigrant special interests. He failed to muster enough support for an immigration reform bill, and Congress refused to pass the DREAM Act. With the 2012 campaign season looming, Mr. Obama’s solution was to permit illegals to remain as long as they did not turn to crime. The policy is uniquely Obama. It gets the job done by skirting the law, bypassing Congress, and leaving the immigration problem unsolved, to be fought another day.
Just because the president could not deliver on his 2008 campaign platform does not mean that a massive overhaul of our immigration system is a task that should belong to the Republican Party. After three years of hell, the 2012 election is an opportunity to pull the country back from its downward spiral. Anything else is window dressing. Why are we hearing about a solution for illegal immigration from Newt Gingrich that sounds just as massive, and little better than what our president tried to sell us?
Gingrich’s solution spawned dissent between Republican presidential frontrunners while Herman Cain was proving that the party is vulnerable to the same moral territory that damned Bill Clinton. The Gingrich plan makes the same mistake the president made by taking a politician’s approach to immigration. The proposal stumbles badly when it comes to dealing with the issue that arouses the most anger. What do we do with the millions of illegals who are already here (see: Gingrich’s Plan Dodges the Biggest Question on Immigration)?
The Gingrich plan creates more bureaucracy, and demands accountability from illegal residents whose presence proves they are not accountable. Requirements we will never be able to enforce include making sure that illegals purchase private health insurance and can be self-supporting. The Federal Government and citizens’ review panels would track the details of lives lived in the shadows to prove that those up for legal status are worthy. Gingrich’s solution ignores the likelihood that most illegal residents who have resided in the U.S. for years have committed fraud so they could stay here (see: New Immigration Policy Could Force Us to Overlook Fraud and Illinois DREAM Act: Smarter Illegals, Better Frauds?). If Mr. Gingrich wins the White House, does he really want to find himself declaring that most of the illegals considered for legal status need to be deported for identify theft, employment and benefit fraud, and similar crimes?
Unlike the Gingrich proposal, Mitt Romney’s ideas on dealing with illegal immigrants are businesslike and utilitarian. His plan has merit in its minimalist approach, taking the laws we already have, and going a step further by clamping down on tuition breaks and cutting federal aid to sanctuary cities. The proposal does not endorse favoritism based on length of time spent in the U.S. It requires that illegals leave, and get in line if they want to be citizens. Like everyone else who picks up the immigration albatross, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Newt Gingrich, Romney wants to secure the border. If he can figure out how to do it, bravo.
Republicans have a chance to offer the country an alternative to four more years of an administration that has sustained the recession with wrongheaded, misguided policies. What we want from our next president is action to pull the country back from the brink, and to spur some positive contributions from a House and Senate whose current incarnations define worthless. After watching illegal immigrants, unions, and other special interests being openly courted while Americans lost their jobs and savings, we need to see some steps on behalf of those who pay to keep the country running, including business owners who are continually under threat of regulation and higher taxes. Wasting time and resources to make life better for illegals who have shown that they are adept at staying under ICE’s radar sends the wrong message, and buys into the Democratic argument that fairness gives us no choice but legalization or amnesty. Newt Gingrich’s plan makes that mistake. Mitt Romney’s does not.
This is the time for new ideas. The Tea Party helped to win back the House by breathing fresh life into conservative politics before last year’s midterms. Republican hopefuls who throw themselves at the president’s issues are begging for Mr. Obama to call the shots, rehashing the same tired Democratic platform that worked in 2008, could work again in 2012, and will continue to ruin our economy. If Republicans respond with their own retrospective on the president’s agenda, we will finish this election cycle right where we are now, once again having thrown the opportunity for a fresh start out the window.
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