Immigration Guru McCain

If immigration is your number one political priority, whatshould you do this election? The answer to the question is simple for the ILW: if McCain wins, we win,and if Obama wins, we lose. That's because both Democrats and Republicansare almost unanimous in the belief that we need to import more foreignworkers, and to give amnesty to the ones who came to this countryillegally. Unfortunately immigration is one of the few issuesboth parties agree on, but it is true that their rhetoric on immigration isalmost identical.

We begin with the observation that Democrats will likely consolidate andexpand their control of the Senate and the House. This is good news for theimmigration cause. However, in spite of controlling Congress for the pasttwo years Democrats have done virtually nothing on immigration benefits andhave continued massive spending on immigration enforcement. So, even thoughmost political analysts are agreed that Democrats are poised forsignificant gains in the House and the Senate, that alone does not portendany immigration benefits in the coming years.

With that background, let us examine the difference in prospects forimmigration benefits on Jan 20, 2009 if we get President Obama or if we getPresident McCain.

If we get President Obama, Democrats are going to be euphoric on Jan 20,2009, and rightly so - being back in the White House, at last, after 8 longand bitter years. Democrats have not been able to pursue their prioritiesfor 8 years and we can expect them to act aggressively on their bigpriorities immediately after a President Obama takes office. There are atleast four Democratic priorities ahead of immigration: the Iraq war,universal health care, budget/taxes and energy policy. These are all large,complex issues and Congress will take most of a President Obama's firstterm to work on these. In such a scenario, we will not see any significantimmigration benefits in the foreseeable future.

If we get President McCain, we will still have a powerful Democraticmajority in Congress on Jan 20, 2009. This Congress will be at loggerheadswith him on all the major Democratic priorities. Democrats will want tobring the troops home whereas Mr. McCain wants them in Iraq for 100 years;Democrats see a health care crisis whereas Mr. McCain sees none; Democratswill want increased taxes whereas Mr. McCain would like to cut them;Democrats want to conserve oil and work on alternative sources of powerwhereas Mr. McCain would like to drill for oil all over the map. Democratsand a President McCain will be 180 degrees apart on all major Democraticpriorities. In this bitter fighting hardly anything will get donelegislatively, and both Democrats and Mr. McCain will be looking foropportunities to show the country that they can work on something together.

While there are a few areas of agreement between Mr. McCain and Democrats,immigration is the largest issue on which Democrats and McCain agree. Whilethe current Republican Party platform is the most anti-immigrant one inmemory, there were news reports that Mr. McCain, who has a long trackrecord of being pro-immigration, tried to make it more immigration-friendlyand failed. This is the issue on which he is most likely to stab hisparty's anti-immigrationist wing in the back both in his politicalinterests and due to his own convictions (Mr. McCain had to fight hisparty's anti-immigrationists tooth and nail during the Republicanprimaries). We expect to see almost all of the original McCain-Kennedy billbecome law during the first six months of a McCain Presidency.

The Bush era has been the worst in memory for immigration advocates.However the combination of a powerful Democratic majority in Congress withMr. McCain as President offers the best hope for speedily obtainingdesperately needed immigration benefits.