Immigration has been dubbed the third rail of American politics, along with Social Security, Medicare, gun control, and a variety of other hot-button issues. To me, it’s more like a downed power line snaking low across the ground and electrocuting whomever fails to give it respectful attention. As the eyes of the nation turn
The Immigration Week That Was
Youthful fans of Saturday Night Live may be forgiven for assuming, however mistakenly, that SNL invented satirical television comedy. The patent for this invention probably ought to go instead to other earlier contenders, Jack Paar, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coco or Steve Allen. While I love these past and present paragons of humor, I’ll never
Immigration Buffets and Buffeting in Congress
Congress has spread a table laden with reheated immigration delicacies, while still engaging in the usual posturing, pretend friendships and verbal fisticuffs.
In a spirit of convivial bipartisanship, the House on September 13 passed by a vote of 402-3 legislation the Senate had approved in August, S.3245 (“A bill to extend by 3 years the
The Democrats’ Immigration Position: Better But Blemished
The Democratic Convention in Charlotte ended last week. The media has now turned to measuring and marveling at President Obama’s post-convention bounce despite weak Labor Department data revealing persistent joblessness.
The inevitable comparisons of the two parties’ convention performances give the edge to the Democrats’ oratory, production values, crowd enthusiasm and diversity. On immigration policy, the Dems
The GOP Position: Immigration under Glass
Labor Day, the quaintly traditional start of the Presidential election season, arrived this year with the memory still fresh of self-mortification Republican style — the projection of Second Amendment rights squarely into their collective feet.
Rather than enjoying a customary post-convention bump in the polls, GOP candidate Mitt Romney received “easily the worst rating
Immigration’s Mad Men (and Women)
With the dog days of an election year producing little more than frothy pundits regurgitating banal analyses of the day’s non-events, and seeing no near-term prospect of comprehensive immigration reform, I temporarily turned aside my wonkish ways.
While publishing two posts by guest authors, I time-shifted back to the supposedly halcyon years of my youth
Rethinking Employment-Based Immigration: Stop the GOP’s Slide toward Socialism
The title of this blog is preposterous, you say. The “Grand Old Party” and “Socialism” — the words are simply inaptly juxtaposed in the same sentence. Strange as it seems, however, when it comes to immigration policy, a reading of the political tea leaves foreshadows a new trend line for the Republicans, one indeed headed
Dealing with ‘the Reality of What Is’: The GOP Quandary over Immigration
“I’m having to deal with the reality of what is. You can’t wish it away. What is, is.” So says a glum Ohio Democrat, Governor Ted Strickland, according to reporter Laura Meckler in this weekend’s edition of The Wall St. Journal (“Democrats Face Economic Facts: Updraft Unlikely“). Meckler’s article reports on the prospect