Last month, the Lincoln Club of Orange County released a "Policy Statement on Immigration Reform" [1]. Their plan is - in a word - delusional. I'll quote the most delusional part of their plan, and explain why it wouldn't work as they want you to think it would.

The United States should utilize free market principles to meet the labor demands of certain American business by allowing temporary immigrant labor to legally enter as part of a guest worker program. The program would also allow current illegal workers to “transition” to legal guest worker status, and after some period of time and the completion of additional requirements such as English proficiency, guest workers would be eligible for a pathway to legal residency, not citizenship.

First, the Democratic Party wouldn't agree to that. It's just the reality that the Democratic Party cannot be assumed to have no say in matters, and that's especially true in California. If the GOP proposed such a plan, the Democrats would oppose it and attempt to weaken it.

But, just for the sake of argument, let's assume the GOP is able to pass that plan. Let's say it happened on a Monday. You know what would happen on Tuesday? The Democrats and other groups would set to work weakening the plan.

There's a multi-million dollar "industry" dedicated to weakening our immigration laws, and most of the groups and people involved can be read about at those links. Those groups and people might agree to tough provisions up until the very day a bill is signed. However, the very next day they'd set to work trying to weaken the tough provisions they'd agreed to the day before. The American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, National Council of La Raza, MALDEF, and allied groups would file suit after suit designed to weaken the tough provisions, the establishment media would run propaganda pieces about poor, sympathetic illegal aliens who were caught up in the tough provisions, and on and on. That's what they do, and that's a major part of the reason why there's illegal immigration to begin with.

Any immigration plan that doesn't take into account the Democratic Party, the ACLU, the SPLC, the media, and on and on isn't a real plan at all: those groups wield tremendous power.

Either the Lincoln Club is delusional and is assuming a world where there's no Democratic Party/ACLU/SPLC/MSM, or they aren't smart enough to realize what those groups would do, or they're playing you for a fool (or a combination of two or three).

What if the GOP complained about attempts to weaken their amnesty? The Democrats would then portray them as "anti immigrant". All of the GOP's Hispandering would be for naught: they'd have pushed for amnesty, and in return they get called "anti-immigrant" (or worse).

The Lincoln Club is trying to make you believe that we could have millions of potential Democratic voters inside the U.S., and the Democrats would just let them remain as non-voters.

Further, the Lincoln Club of OC's idea of a "free market" is more than a bit skewed: low-wage labor is subsidized, whether it's performed by illegal aliens or U.S. citizens. The Lincoln Club wants to help companies "socialize the costs and privatize the profits": they want to give businesses a ready supply of low-cost labor, with the full costs of that labor passed on to everyone else. In an actual free market, businesses would pay the full cost for their labor, including such things as healthcare, schooling for their workers' children, social and cultural costs, and on and on.

Their plan would be great for those who want to employ foreign labor at low rates and pass the higher true costs on to everyone else. It would be great for the leaders of the Democratic Party who want race-based power. However, it would harm the U.S. and it would harm the GOP.

In case anyone still supports the Lincoln Club's plan for any reason (other than wanting to personally profit from "cheap" labor), feel free to leave a comment and I'll add even more.

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[1] lincolnclub.org/aboutus/immigration-statement