Amnesty Supporters Think They’re Rocky

            In the movie Rocky, the boxing champ Apollo Creed laughed that Rocky, his challenger, had no chance to win. The problem with that, as the movie revealed, was that Rocky didn’t know that. It’s a lesson that might apply to the politics of immigration, specifically the upcoming amnesty legislation.

Much conventional wisdom has it that a major amnesty bill can’t pass this year because there is too much risk to the Democrats, with elections ahead in November, to try to ram through such an unpopular measure—one that would allow illegal aliens to keep their U.S. jobs—when so many Americans are out of work. And this conventional wisdom could well be right. Let’s hope so.

But let’s not neglect to consider that amnesty advocates are hungry and determined. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was a major group that spearheaded the failed amnesty legislation in 2007. Its executive vice president Eliseo Medina recently stated, “We’re in much, much, much better condition than we were in 2007. We have a united labor movement, and we have, I think, a tighter-knit network of immigrant rights advocates, organizations, churches and others around the country.”

Amnesty advocate Tamar Jacoby had this to say about the pro-amnesty left: “[T]hey’ve had unprecedented amounts of money in the past year, and they’re organizing the field, coordinating among themselves, they’re unrecognizable almost from what they were in 2006 and 2007.” A shill for cheap labor business interests, Jacoby lamented that these interests aren’t organized quite as well for amnesty, but are playing “a different level of the game” than before.

The Democrat leadership may indeed favor caution for now, but if it appears likely that the party will suffer a political wipeout in November no matter what it does—a distinct possibility—it might opt to go for broke to pass amnesty. The aim would be to take a loss now with the hope of securing a future voting bloc of amnestied illegals.

In any case, the amnesty lobbies are pushing their agenda with unrelenting zeal. One of their goals is to intimidate leading individuals and organizations against amnesty who helped guide and direct the public outrage that stopped amnesty in 2006 and 2007. Amnesty advocates are still crowing over their success in pushing CNN commentator Lou Dobbs off the air.

AIC will not be intimidated by this strategy, and we urge our supporters to close ranks against it. No matter who or what our opponents think they are, we will go the distance against them, and try for a knockout all the way.