George F. Will on Tom Tancredo

Posted Sun, Oct 9, 2005 at 1:47 pm
Will discusses Tancredo in a largely fair column entitled "The GOP's Border Guard". Unfortunately, he also works in a few myths and canards.
Tancredo knows his candidacy would be quixotic, and he worries that if he wins few votes his issue will be discounted. But he also knows that presidential primaries are, among other things, market research mechanisms whereby unserved constituencies are discovered and dormant issues brought to life.

Which is what worries Republican officials. They desperately want to avoid giving offense to the Hispanic vote, the rapidly growing -- and already the largest -- cohort in play in American politics.
Now, see The "Hispanic Vote" myth for all the many reasons that concept is wrong.
The basic problem is that the nation's economy is ravenous for more immigrant labor than the system of legal immigration can currently provide.
Last I checked, there are millions of Americans out of work, including hundreds of thousands from Katrina. Just over half of black males in NYC between 16 and 64 are employed. And, there's the not inconsequential matter of throwing cheap labor at a problem when mechanization and automation are the better solution for this country.
Furthermore, about 11 million illegal immigrants are in America. It would take a lot of buses -- 200,000 of them, bumper-to-bumper in a convoy 1,700 miles long -- to carry them back to America's border. America will not do that -- will not round up and deport the equivalent of the population of Ohio.

Tancredo agrees, and insists that no such draconian measure is necessary. His silver bullet is to "just enforce the law" -- the law against hiring illegal immigrants. Give employers computerized means of checking the status of job applicants, and, he says, the ones here illegally will go home. If only it were that simple.
No, it isn't that simple as long as corrupt politicians are in charge and are unable or unwilling to crack down on corrupt businesses.
Tags: 
tom tancredo
hispanic vote
george will
deportations false choice

Comments

perroazul del norte (not verified)

Mon, 10/10/2005 - 15:49

Tancredo(who has a mixed voting record on trade issues) could run against the dogmatic adherence to "free trade" dogma by the Republican establishment. He could also call for a return to fiscal responsibility.

eh (not verified)

Sun, 10/09/2005 - 23:01

Never been a big fan of Will, but still it's a little surprising to see him pen such nonsense, which is little more than a cliche-ridden, either-or red herring: either we capitulate, meaning amnesty for the millions of illegals here already plus some form of immigration 'reform' that will allow millions more to come, or we have to do the impossible by rounding up 200,000 buses.

But I agree that Tancredo should not run for national office focusing on this issue; his showing is bound to be poor, as is usually the case with (primarily) single issue candidates, and this will certainly be used to discredit people who want immigration law enforced as out there on the fringe with little support.

John S Bolton (not verified)

Sun, 10/09/2005 - 22:07

Hispanics in particular, and immigrants in general are quite a long way from being neutral in their effect on the elections. Reagan did something for black immigration, but the black vote is 90% democratic. Nixon and Ford helped to give us Indochinese refugees by the millions, but the asian vote is overwhelmingly democratic. They've no reason to care about being called racist by the media; which has already shot its wad on that one. The NYT's lead editorial of Sun.9-25-05 most definitively calls Bush a racist. I don't recall there being even a zephyr of ruffled feathers at the administration over that. If they cared much about being called racist by the top liberal media outlets, there would have been a high powered reaction by now.