In a piece last year, I expressed some skepticism over the strategic decision by the Center for Immigration Studies and other restrictionist organizations to start pushing for the “attrition” strategy as a third way between mass deportations and amnesty. The argument I would have made is that if laws against employers and other aspects of the “attrition through enforcement” were enacted, mass deportations would not be necessary. Krikorian and others either implied or explicitly acknowledged that mass deportations were somehow immoral and/or impractical.
My concern was that by readily conceding this rhetorical ground, it would allow the open borders crowd to just move the argument to the Left. Sure enough, last week the NY Times had a long editorial aimed at the “attrition” solution. So instead of using the mass deportation straw man, they readily acknowledge

There is no way to round them up and move them out all at once. Not even the most eagerly anti-immigration candidate would dare talk about detention camps.[One Argument, 12 Million Holes January 18, 2008]

But is the attrition strategy given any more water? Of course not. They call Numbers USA “nativists” for promoting the plan, and characterize it as if it would require the Gestapo to enforce.

It would mean constant ID checks for everyone–citizens, too–with immigration police at the federal, state and local levels. It would mean enlisting bureaucrats and snoops to keep an eye on landlords, renters, laborers, loiterers and everyone who uses government services or gets sick.

They certainly do not find the wording to be any friendlier.

Even if you accept the Republicans’ view of immigration policy as warfare against illegal immigrants, their tactics are the rejects of history, starting with that Vietnam-evoking “attrition.”

The media is now distorting and smearing attrition and its proponents the same way they did to the imaginary proponents of mass deportations. Essentially, insisting that we do not favor mass deportations has achieved nothing  but giving the Left more of an opportunity to characterize all our policies as extreme.

This the latest Ann Coulter column:

Unluckily for McCain, snowstorms in Michigan suppressed the turnout among Democratic “Independents” who planned to screw up the Republican primary by voting for our worst candidate. Democrats are notoriously unreliable voters in bad weather. Instead of putting on galoshes and going to the polls, they sit on their porches waiting for FEMA to rescue them.

In contrast to Michigan’s foul weather, New Hampshire was balmy on primary day, allowing McCain’s base — Democrats — to come out and vote for him.AnnCoulter.com - Archived Article: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Actually, I always think of McCain’s base as the press, and Nicholas Stix calls him Sen. John McCain, (Media-AZ). But I always wonder what actual Republicans who vote for him are thinking.

For obvious historical reasons, the US has been reluctant to deport people to Communist countries, including Cuba, the former Soviet Union, and Communist Vietnam . The State Department has just reached a deportation agreement with Vietnam:

San Jose Mercury News - Thousands of Vietnamese living illegally in U.S. face deportation
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News
Article Launched: 01/22/2008 06:12:57 PM PST

In two months, the U.S. government will begin deporting more than 8,000 illegal Vietnamese immigrants as the result of a long-sought repatriation agreement signed Tuesday by Washington and Hanoi.

The pact deals with a once-verboten subject in the emigre community - the forced return of Vietnamese nationals to their communist homeland - and it underscores how close Vietnam and the United States have become.

In addition, the muted reaction Tuesday in San Jose’s 100,000-strong Vietnamese community illustrated how much emigre politics have changed in the once rigidly anti-communist community.

Although some worried that the communist regime might retaliate against repatriated emigres, most Vietnamese-Americans interviewed Tuesday seemed to view the agreement as a natural outcome of the growing ties between two former enemies.

“It’s normal,” said Hoang Co Dinh of San Jose, a member of the Vietnam pro-democracy group Viet Tan.[More]

The other point is that most of these people aren’t being deported just for being illegal immigrants–they’re really being deported for variuous fairly serious crimes:

Most of the illegal immigrants - about 7,300 Vietnamese - have criminal convictions that made them subject to deportation, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Others overstayed visitors visas.

This is from Instapundit.com regarding that story about veterans and murder I mentioned Monday:

January 22, 2008

MILITARY VETERANS AND MURDER: Fact-checking the New York Times.

If you published a similarly anecdotal and unfounded piece about black people and murder, the NYT would call you a racist.

And if you were to publish an accurate report, based on Department of Justice statistics, about black crime, they’d call you a “scientific racist” and picket your conferences. Ask Jared Taylor.