There’s an excellent story in the Washington Post about a marriage fraud ring that’s been broken up by the authorities, with the result that some people are going to be sent home.

Some questions:

• Why is there a Ghanaian colony in Virginia?
• Why did this investigation take four years?
• And why did the judge hearing Caroline Chepkwony’s plea feel the need to affirm that America is a “Nation of immigrants” from the bench?“America is composed of — is a nation of immigrants,” he said. “Everyone here came from somewhere else.

Hunch Unravels Immigrant Wedding Scam
Odd Behavior at Arlington Courthouse Leads to Arrests in Probe of Green-Card Marriages

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post
Monday, November 13, 2006; A01

They didn’t hug. They didn’t kiss. They didn’t even sit together.

Many couples going to the Arlington County Courthouse seemed more like strangers than people applying for marriage licenses. A man named Sam often escorted them to the sixth-floor clerk’s office. Sometimes, there would be a furtive exchange of money in the elevator.

Before long, some of the same people would be back, filing for divorce, their court papers littered with mistakes — always the same mistakes.

“They misspelled ‘circuit,’ ” said David A. Bell, the longtime Circuit Court clerk. “It was obvious something was going on.”

Bell tipped off police, triggering a nearly four-year investigation that recently broke up one of the Washington region’s biggest and most brazen immigration scams: an estimated 1,000 fake marriages. The scheme was centered in the area’s little-noticed but rapidly growing community of immigrants from Ghana.

Read the whole thing.

In September, I wrote that there was potential for the this race to produce a Senate that would be more moderate on the issue of immigration.

Now, much has been made of the Republican rout. What does this really mean for the issue of immigration? The retirement of Jeffords means he’s going to be replaced by Socialist Bernie Saunders–who despite his explicit leftism, has a track record of greater moderation on the issue of immigration than former Republican Jeffords did. The exit of open borders radical Bill Frist from the Senate opens the chance that someone more moderate will occupy that seat.

The switches in party affiliation we saw in this election came down to the following seats:(with their accompanied grades from Americans for Better Immigration):

Missouri-Talent A
Virginia-Allen B
Pennsylvania-Santorum B-
Montana-Burns C+
Ohio-DeWine D+
Rhode Island-Chafee D-

Now, Talent and Allen are likely to be replaced by Democrats that are fairly moderate on the issue of immigration. Dewine’s Democratic oppononent had a more moderate issue on immigration than he did.

Montana’s Burns is being replaced by a Democrat who is explicitly opposed to an immigration amnesty. Bob Casey, who defeated Santorum in Pennsylvania promises to be tougher on the issue of employment of illegal aliens than the Republican he defeated. Chafee’s Democratic opponent promises to have a similar stands.

I don’t think the senate results are a cause for celebration among immigration restriction advocates. Allen’s defeat removes almost any possibility than the 2008 GOP presidential candidate will have any realism on the issue of immigration. Everyone left has already been bought and paid for by open borders interests. However, there is a real chance that the new senate will be more willing to tackle things like tougher sanction on employers of illegal aliens.

If Democrats can do that, then I fully expect them to improve their margins in 2008–and if they field a candidate like Al Gore with a more restrictionist track record on immigration, I expect they’ll take the presidency.

Two weeks ago, Steve Sailer wrote

If the Republicans lose the House but not the Senate, you can expect to read on November 9 an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Tamar Jacoby, Michael Barone, or both crowing that the loss of the House is a crushing reproach to "nativism"

We know that the news side of the Wall Street Journal has been talking about the “crucial role” of Hispanics in the election, a myth Steve debunks at length in last night’s column.

But if you don’t have a subscription to the WSJ, you may not have read their latest unsigned editorial blaming people with normal views on immigration for the GOP’s loss. [Immigration Losers, November 10, 2006 (link may require subscription)]

People who have read it include immigration enthusiast Daniel Griswold, who approves of it, Michelle Malkin who doesn’t, (she has it linked to the her comments on the murder of Adrienne Shelly, which will no doubt annoy James Taranto)and Phil Boas in the Arizona Republic’s blog, who’s balanced.

Remember, most of the American electorate wants immigration enforcement. That includes a great many Democrats, and almost all Republicans who aren’t executives at Fortune 500 companies, or wealthy fruit farmers.

Remember, that actual base of the GOP is voters–not, as the WSJ seems to think, “nearly every business executive” who comes through their offices. They can send money, but they have very few actual votes.

Just possibly, the raucous celebrations of the Treason Lobby anticipating that the Democratic Congress will team up with the White House to pass the Bush-Kennedy Amnesty/Immigration Acceleration bill may be premature.

The problem: while absolutely no one ran trumpeting support for the measure, quite a few Democrats took positions against it.

In many of the races, Democratic and Republican candidates seemingly tried to outdo each other in sounding tough, calling for aggressive border security and steep fines on employers of illegal immigrants and denouncing legalization provisions as amnesty.
Rep. Nick Lampson, a conservative Democrat who’ll replace former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a suburban Houston district, has said he doesn’t favor “a guest-worker program for people who broke our law to come here.”
Incoming Democrats Patrick Murphy and Chris Carney, both of Pennsylvania, also have called for toughened measures and assailed Republican opponents for being soft on immigration, according to a media account of their races. Murphy ran TV ads pledging support for toughened enforcement and opposing amnesty

(Bush immigration plan has new chance by Dave Montgomery The Detroit Free Press November 12 2006)

The newly elected Democratic House members will, of course, be very focused on entrenching themselves in their districts. The whole party will be focused on regaining the Presidency in 2008. There can be arguments about how potent immigration restriction is as a vote winner, but no one is suggesting Amnesty and immigration acceleration is popular at all with voters (as opposed to lobbyists).

Furthermore the issue is not going away. The voter concerns which upstaged it and came to dominate the campaign’s final weeks are more transient:

A Pew Research Center exit poll showed 30 percent of those polled nationwide said illegal immigration was an “extremely important issue,” but only 52 percent of them said they voted for Republican candidates, while 46 percent of them voted for Democrats.

Corruption, ethics, terrorism and Iraq ranked higher than immigration as concerns among those questioned in the Pew poll.

(Expectations rise for immigration reform By: Edward Sifuentes NCTimes.com November 11 2006)

Corruption and ethics will if anything be a Democratic problem by 2008, and the departure of President Bush is likely to de emphasize overseas adventurism as an issue. It was difficult this year for the Republicans to capture the immigration issue effectively, given fact that the White House was the biggest Treason Lobby culprit. Democrats might well prefer not to let their opponents make the issue their own.

The Christian Science Monitor has a sensible editorial on the subject (Illegal-immigration temptation The Monitor’s view November 13 2006)

President Bush may have won at least something in last week’s election. A Democratic Congress could lean more closely toward his ideas on dealing with illegal immigration. But before the two now try to look bipartisan and pass something quickly, they should scrutinize the tea leaves in the ballot results…
More than 3 in 5 Americans say the issue of illegal immigrants is either “extremely” or “very” important, according to this election’s exit polls. The new Congress will need to separate the urgent need to curb illegal immigration in a post-9/11 world from other immigration concerns, such as providing business with cheap labor.

A big change to remember is that a substantial section of the public is now up to speed on the issue. Any news story with a comment thread is likely to be swamped by angry, articulate and surprisingly sophisticated restrictionist comments (See, for instance, Residents Respond To Immigration Proposal by Pablo Bello The Morning News Friday November 10 2006). House members can count on getting an earful on the matter. This battle is not over.