GOP platform supports Arizona-style laws, but includes guest worker program

First the good news about the newly-passed GOP platform. From [1]:

The official party position now reads that "State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked," and says the Department of Justice should immediately drop its lawsuits against controversial state immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah.

[The] amendment (put forward by Kris Kobach), which is now official party policy, also includes calls to withhold federal funding for any universities that provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants as well as "sanctuary cities" that refuse to enforce state and federal laws on immigration, and calls for the government to complete construction of a fence along the Mexican border that Congress authorized in 2006.

Another amendment he backed that was included in the party platform strengthens the GOP's previous support of a national "E-Verify" system.

Now for the bad news. From [2]:

The Republican National Committee's 2012 platform on immigration, adopted on Tuesday, calls for a "legal and reliable source of foreign labor through a new guest-worker program."

"It wasn't even attacked," crowed Brad Bailey, a Texas restauranteur who lobbied heavily for the inclusion of a guest-worker program in the document. Bailey was expecting immigration hard-liners to go after the proposed temporary worker program because a standard GOP campaign line says that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. Businesses dispute that statement, saying there are many jobs (like roofing and fruit-picking) that Americans won't do.

The good news is quite a break from the George W Bush years; the bad news is more in line with his thinking.

More on the platform in a future post when the exact language is available. For more on these issues, see:

* Arizona

* guest workers

* attrition (aka "self-deport")

* eVerify

* Why the Texas 2012 GOP platform is wrong.

* Why the Utah Compact is wrong.

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[1] peekURL.com/znD3aq5
[2] peekURL.com/zVLDUEE