"Give me a reason to have faith. We've had a lot of rough talk for a number of years and they've done nothing."
- Republican Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, AZ
Milestone convictions notwithstanding, immigration is heating up right now (oh yes, it can get hotter!) so I've taken a quick look at the Republicans' battle-plan and it does nothing to address the problem of America's utterly disorganized immigration problem, one that gives rise to organized crime in Mexico and creates second-class labor here in the US.
Neither of these things matter to the Republicans, but they found out the hard way that it matters to Americans, so they have to get their story straight.
There are
some Republicans who recognize that economics are at the root of this problem and that America relies on Mexican labor too extensively to shut it all off, assuming we could.
Essentially, the Pence bill would separate illegal aliens into two groups: those who want to become citizens and those who want to come here only for temporary jobs.
The "temporary workers" would be allowed to apply for jobs through a private agency. Once hired, they would be issued a "biometric" identification card. When the job ends, the "temporary workers" supposedly would return to their home countries rather than staying in the U.S. and applying for permanent residency.
"The fact is 85-90 percent of people crossing our borders illegally just want to work," said the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation, the free-market group that inspired Pence's bill.
"They have no intention of becoming American citizens, they have committed no other crime and pose no security risk. If they are moved to a simple legal path to enter as temporary workers, border control would be much easier and more effective," the foundation said in a press release.
Pence, for all his intelligence and honesty on this issue has made the mistake of assuming that his leaders are serious about changing the status quo. They aren't. Cheap, illegal Mexican labor keeps their rich friends' profit margins wide and scares poor whites into the polling booths, to vote for Republicans who'll just do it all again.
Luntz, you'll remember, was the guy who advised the GOP to wave off all issues and just talk about September 11th all the time. The right-wing pollster may have had a falling out with Boehner, but that didn't mean he was done with the GOP. KOS already has Luntz's new talking-points here. What's astounding to me, personally, is that even with all the polling data in front of him, Luntz bends over backwards in order to get the answer wrong, simply to legitimize the GOP's general approach.
[Immigration] Reform must start with the prevention of further illegal immigration, and that prevention starts at the border. While a majority of Americans believe it is the economic consequences of illegal immigration that is doing the most damage, it's the "principle of prevention" that the public sees as the most important solution.
"If we stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, we can start to address the problems created by illegal immigrants already here. But if we fail to prevent new illegal immigrants from entering the country, no reform measure will be truly effective."
This, of course, is ass-backwards. The root of the problem is economical (but economics has to wait 'till page eleven of Luntz's guidlines). Prevention at the border, however, the only thing the GOP agrees on right now, so it has to be made conventional wisdom. From that safe base, then, they can branch out and have their internal fight on safe ground, without negative consequences in the public's perception.
However, a meaningful approach to fixing immigration begins and ends with drying up the jobs available to them here. That's why they come here. If you don't want them coming here, enforce the laws already on the books that punish those who hire illegal immigrants. George Bush ignored these laws, dropping enforcement down to almost nothing, because he's a cheap labor Republican. If any jobs are lost to illegals, Bush and others of his class will never feel a thing.
This simple and essential point is something Luntz has to bury. He can't ignore it because being called on it would be expensive, so he bury's hints here and there to give himself deniability.
Those who hire illegal immigrants should be held accountable.
That's it. The economic root and cause of the current problem appears only as a subset of accountability, one italicized example quote on page one. It even comes below the choreographed hissy-fit, "This is about overcrowding of YOUR schools, emergency room chaos in YOUR hospitals, the increase in YOUR taxes, and the crime in YOUR communities."
Luntz and the parasites he serves don't want you do know that crime is actually lower in areas with lots of illegal immigrants. When Luntz finally turns to economics, it is only to address Americans' fears that social services to illegals are running up the deficit (on p. 19 Luntz notes that 27% of Americans think that even legal immigrants are hurting the country). Focus on the fears about the symptoms, says Luntz, to hell with the cause and forget about a cure.
On page two he notes:
Penalizing employers for hiring illegal immigrants. Even Republicans want to "stop the supply of jobs that encourages the supply of illegal immigrants." Punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants is almost as popular as punishing the illegal immigrants themselves.
All emphases are Luntz's, btw. You'll notice that even Luntz admits that attacking the root and cause of the problem is extremely important to the American people, being "as popular as punishing the illegal immigrants themselves," which when you consider how much fear has been whipped up is saying a lot.
And yet here it is, relegated to an example on page two about how to be careful with language. It's not a policy idea, it's an advertising idea. The solution is buried along with tips to use the English language as a wedge issue and the suggested gotcha line "A country that can't control its own borders can't control its own destiny."
The fact is that the Republicans are controling the borders just fine, according to their priorities. Lots of cheap labor that they can also use to scare people. It's working just fine!
Or at least it was until the immigrant protests raised the visibility of the cheap, illegal labor most Americans take for granted. For instance, on p. 6, 28% of Americans say they "don't know what [illegal immigrants are] doing while here"! Don't know? Look out the window! Visibility makes hypocrisy more expensive and that's where Luntz makes his bones.
Did I mention the right isn't serious about fixing immigration? Why would they be, it would cut off the cheap labor they love. You're expecting them to act against their own interests. Instead, they'll use Luntz to help them sell bullshit to the terrified.
Wanna fix immigration? Just enforce the laws we already have and fully fund the agencies we already have. Looks like Bush shouldn't have shortchanged INS over a thousand agents, huh? Gonna take a lot of framing to get around that little problem!
And so Luntz ignores it. Instead, enforcing the laws already on the books is treated generically as a rhetorical ploy. His own numbers (page 4) show that 50% of Americans want to enforce the laws we already have, compared to 36% who think new laws are called for. 90% of Americans want those who employ illegals aliens to be punished (p.14), 44% want a "Large Fine." But Luntz's suggested sound-bites (pp. 3 - 4) only address illegal aliens themselves.
Luntz sees amnesty as a losing proposition, and rejecting amnesty requires a rhetoric of law and order, but it is only rhetoric (p. 5):
The Democrat [sic] governors who declared a state of emergency on their borders have inoculated themselves against charges that they are "soft" on illegal immigration, while Republicans who only talk about guest worker programs are guaranteeing themselves a voter revolt at the polls unless and until they start addressing enforcement. The American people want laws that hold everyone accountable for their actions - employers and illegal immigrants alike.
Enforcing the laws against those who employ illegal aliens is merely rhetorical because the strategy returns again and again to "prevention," i.e., that if you just stop them at the border everything else will follow. Luntz says this several times a page, he makes it so simple even a Republican will get his point.
WORDS THAT WORK
"Step one is accountability on the borders. We need to put whatever police, whatever security personnel, whatever type of equipment is necessary. If it's a wall, let it be a wall. But we have to stop the flood of people across the border 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Accountability starts with a simple principle - prevention. If we prevent illegal immigration, then we won't have to deal with illegal immigration.
If we stop people from successfully getting across the border, then our schools won't be as overcrowded, the hospital waiting rooms and emergency rooms won't be as overcrowded, our highways and our streets won't be as overcrowded, our social services won't be as abused, and taxpayers won't be as punished."
MORE WORDS THAT WORK
"It is hard for me to deny the child of an illegal immigrant an education or the right to see a doctor because it is not their fault, but it is easy for me to deny that illegal immigrant entry into this country. That's why we need to invest more money in border security -- so we then don't have to spend more money on overcrowded schools, overcrowded highways, overcrowded emergency rooms, and overcrowded jails.
Prevention is the best solution."
But don't forget to mention September 11th:
It's about preventing the next September 11th. We don't know who is entering the country each day. We don't know why they are here or what they plan to do. What we do know is that terrorists can't attack America if terrorists are kept OUT of America.
Of course, anyone NOT dumb enough to be a Republican knows that the September 11th terrorists came over the Canadian border. All brown people may look alike to the Republicans' constituents, but this Democrat can tell an Arab from my father-in-law (and Mexicans sure as hell can). Mexico doesn't have an Arab community for Islamist terrorists to hide in, Canada does.
Any doubt, by the way, that this is all about Mexican immigrants is dispelled by the fact that pages 20 - 24 of Luntz's report deal with the ticklish business of selling all of this to Hispanics.
A canny strategist, Luntz cannot ignore the problem that Republicans are weak on immigration ('cause they love that cheap labor) and that Democrats are strong.
DEMOCRAT [sic] WORDS THAT WORK
"When we're talking about stronger border enforcement, let's just do it. The Intelligence Reform Bill called for 2,000 new border agents every year for the next four years. The President's budget only had 250. That's not enough people, but people alone won't solve this problem. Let's find better sensors, tracking equipment and state-of-the-art technology. Let's give better resources to our border officials and facilitate them working with the local law enforcement. We need to do more.
The problem is, is that the federal government is not doing anything about it. They're looking the other way, and they're living in denial. This has been the real problem we have in our state.
We have requested over and over for more border patrols. We have requested over and over to finish the fence that was started -- the three miles. Now, finally, Secretary Chertoff has called us and has told us that it will be finished and that he's committing to finishing it, and that he will send more border patrol people and help us with the resources.
But it seems like it's too little and too late."
- Gov. Bill Richardson
There it is on page 10: one of the GOP's biggest strategists admits the Democrats are way ahead on fixing the immigration problem.
Luntz's polling has found that these words work:
"We've got to find a way to dry up the jobs magnet. There has not been enough enforcement. There have not been enough prosecutions. There have not been sufficient sanctions. Employers know that they can hire illegal immigrants with impunity, and every day that they get by without a sanction is another day they put undo profit in their pockets. That has to end."
Well, the metaphor doesn't work, but here, on page fifteen, we finally find some common sense. But again it's framed in terms of the costs of social services. The quote shows a perception that employers are the cause, but Luntz buries the entire passage between language about the costs of social services and scare-tactics about immigrants and crime, even though immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than American citizens.
It will not surprise you at all to learn that the American people are smarter than the Republicans who hope to beguile them. But even I am shocked to see evidence in Luntz's own work that the wisdom of the American people was right in front of him and he ignored it.
All to help salvage the old Republican strategy of balancing cheap labor with the fear of immigrants, the oldest trick in American labor history.
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