What Are Reid and Company Up To?

 

            Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) believes that the Senate can pass an amnesty for illegal aliens before the end of the year. He said that he was willing to put his party’s “reputation on the line” to accomplish this goal. Even if he can’t persuade all Senate Democrats to vote for amnesty, the senator maintains that he can find enough Republicans to pass the legislation.
            What is one to make of this? For one thing it certainly suggests that Reid has little concern for millions of unemployed Americans who are cut off from jobs now held by illegal aliens—and would face further competition from more illegal immigration encouraged by the amnesty. And his desire to pass a bill, so soon, also may reflect his political self-interest.

            By all accounts he will face a difficult re-election campaign in 2010. Thus, if he sponsors something as unpopular as amnesty, Reid may want enough time to elapse so that—he hopes—voters will forget about it before they go to the polls.

            Or there might be some duplicity and deception involved. Many Democratic leaders, probably including President Obama, don’t want a push for amnesty until unemployment goes down. It’s probably not because they care about unemployed Americans, but more probably because they care about the high political cost of pushing an amnesty with so many citizens out of work. They might get so mad that they will never forget. On the other hand the leadership is facing intense pressure from Latino supremacists (La Raza, etc.) and other open border zealots to pass an amnesty and pass it now. So what are the Democratic leaders to do?

            Maybe they will make an all-out push to pass amnesty in the Senate, with the knowledge that it may not make it in the House. In 2006 the Senate passed amnesty legislation which languished in the House and eventually died. This would help to placate the open border lobby while failure to go the full distance and enacting a bill would keep the general public from getting too riled up.

            Whatever the case, it appears that something is up in the Senate. And that is where supporters of genuine immigration reform must now focus their attention. If Reid and company try to pass a bill in the upper chamber, the American public must rise up and stop him. Passage in the Senate does not guarantee immediate passage in the House, but it will give amnesty promoters encouragement of eventual passage.

            Winning in the Senate in 2006 prompted them to try again in 2007. Failure in both chambers in 2007 threw a monkey wrench into their agenda. We should prepare to throw another one.