I have looked at the electoral politics of immigration for some time now. There is ambiguous evidence that opposing Amnesty is winning proposition for Republicans (at least in recent years). However, the reverse is decisive. Supporting Amnesty is a strong losing proposition for Republicans. It also appears that opposing Amnesty/supporting immigration control is a winning stand for Democrats.

In the 2006 elections, Republicans with F grades on immigration suffered far more severe losses (25% were defeated) than those with A grades (10% were defeated). Only 6.7% of the Immigration Reform Caucus was defeated. Notably, Lincoln Chafee was crushed even though he was liberal on everything including Amnesty. Dewine in Ohio suffered a similar fate for similar reasons.

Several immigration reformers including John Hostettler, Randy Graf, and J.D. Hayworth, were defeated. However, their Democratic opponents at least claimed to be tougher on immigration than they were (we will see). Indeed, many successful Democrats ran far to the right of their Republican opponents on immigration.

Two of the defeated Republicans (Graf, Hayworth) were in Arizona. Arizona had four immigration related initiatives on the ballot in 2006. All passed by huge margins. Clearly, immigration control was / is a very popular theme in Arizona . See here [PDF] and here for Democratic Underground discussion.

There overall model appears to be, that opposing Amnesty and supporting immigration enforcement is a big plus for Democrats. This position attracts blue collar workers, Republicans concerned about immigration, law and order types, etc. It probably alienates some ethnic activists. However, they aren’t going to vote Republican anyway (Rove needs to consider rehab).

Conversely, supporting Amnesty/Open Borders is a strong loser for Republicans. Of course, Open Borders appeals to ethnic activists and corporate types. However, they are tied to the Democratic and Republican parties and won’t switch over this issue. Conversely, Republican support for Open Borders is a strong “go to H….” message for blue collar workers, independents, middle-class voters concerned about schools, congestion, community values, etc.

This has been born out recently, by the dramatic falls in the popularity of McCain (falling from 59% to 48% approval), Bush (15% approval on immigration), and Mel Martinez (falling from 48% to 37% approval) as the Amnesty debate has proceeded. This is one issue that really “splits the blanket” for Republican voters.

As stated above, there are only limited recent examples of Republicans winning on an immigration control platform. Bilbray in California is a good example. Why? Of course, the Republican Party (starting with Bush) has sent a dubious message on the topic and Democrats have been able to easily outflank Republicans.

Back in 1994, this clearly wasn’t the case. Pete Wilson scored a stunning come from (way) behind victory by attacking Open Borders. A key point is that immigration control was a “public” issue back then in California. It may be a “public” issue nationally now.

The Axis of Amnesty’s revival of the Senate immigration bill has inspired a lot of zombie, vampire, mummy, and Frankenstein references, but I think I like best Dennis Dale’s citation of the climax of The Eagles’ song “Hotel California:”

They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast

Hotel California … hmmhmm, that’s not a bad metaphor for what the Axis wants the American nation to turn into …

A reader forwarded me a link to a YouTube Legal Seminar.

The low point in that presentation (From Lawrence M. Lebowitz, [send him mail] of Cohen & Grigsby):

“And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. And you know in a sense that sounds funny, but it’s what we’re trying to do here. We are complying with the law fully, but ah, our objective is to get this person a green card, and get through the labor certification process. So certainly we are not going to try to find a place [at which to advertise the job] where the applicants are the most numerous. We’re going to try to find a place where we can comply with the law, and hoping, and likely, not to find qualified and interested worker applicants.”

Now, this is the sort of problem you get when the laws are made by a body in which lawyers have undue influence. In the 109th congress, 160 representatives listed their occupation as lawyer–as did 58 senators.

The conflicts of interest here are staggering. We have sadly reached a point where it is considered perfectly normal to gain riches via manipulating the legal system.

UPDATE: They removed the video, but it can be seen here.

The comprehensive-capitulation-to-Mexico bill (S.1348) contains such a diversity of horrors that a veritable cottage industry has sprung up to explore all the implications, such as free lawyers for illegals and you-don’t need-to-learn-English requirements for English fluency.

University of Missouri at Kansas City law professor Kris Kobach has been sounding the alarm that the already dysfunctional federal immigration bureaucracies (USCIS) will collapse under the added load of Z-visa applications. He wrote:

“So let’s assume (conservatively) that 12 million illegals apply for the amnesty within the year allowed. Since the federal government is open for business 250 days a year, there will be an average of 48,000 amnesty applications every day.“

Professor Kobach did throw in the hedge “(conservatively).” Even so, he concluded that the de facto time for consideration of an application would drop from six minutes [!!!] in the catastrophic conditions of today (backlog of something like six million legal applications) to maybe two minutes [!!!!!!] once the Z-visa gold rush begins.

That’s the way a linear-thinking physicist like me would approach it, too: 12 million illegals in 250 days averages out to 48,000 per day. But we should train ourselves to think like famously-devious immigration lawyers (e.g. there’s no hint in this letter from the Billings Gazette that its author is an immigration lawyer, but she is) and organizations making up the ethnic invasion lobby (e.g. MALDEF, LaRaza, and LULAC).

The key thing is that the government would have only one business day to do a background check on an applicant for a provisional Z visa. If they can’t complete it within the requisite 24 hours, tough noogies, the applicant gets the provisional Z.

So why wouldn’t MALDEF, ACLU, et al. simply arrange to hold off on submitting applications until, say, one million had accumulated (about twenty days at the Kris Kobach rate) and then dump the whole stack on the bureaucracy, along with the noisy reminder that “You’d better turn these around by tomorrow”?

Upshot? I’ll bet USCIS will wind up handing out provisional Z visas as casually as if they were prizes from boxes of Cracker Jack.