Republicans and Immigration—The Elephant in the Room

McCain, John-012309-18421- 0004

Jennifer Rubin draws attention to the elephant in the room—that is, the GOP’s unfortunate posturing toward immigration, of which John McCain has lately become the embodiment.

It should be of some consolation that before he could find someone to cast in the nativist role he sought, McCain had to do quite a bit of fruitless searching and, in the end, resort to “synthesizing” his ad from the scenery of a border town and the commentary of a sheriff from a different county. Indeed, the sheriff who enthusiastically confirms McCain’s bona fides as “one of us”—whatever that means—hails from Pinal county, not even on the border, while the ad is shot in Nogales, a border town in the county of Santa Cruz, whose sheriff, Antonio Estrada, has blasted the Arizona immigration bill in no uncertain terms:

“Local law enforcement has a great relationship with the Hispanic community, and something like this is really going to scare these people,” said [Sheriff] Estrada. “They’re going to look at us as immigration officers every time they see us.”

Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima—another county in Southern Arizona, which shares with Mexico the longest border in the state—has called the bill “disgusting,” “racist,” and “unnecessary.”

The ad merely reveals McCain to be a politician, evidently less principled than his supporters took him for in 2008. His presidential ambitions now thwarted, in order to at least not lose his Senate seat, he has gone to great lengths—as far as to endorse the anti-immigration bill of Arizona after having supported the pro-immigration bill of President Bush. But no matter that a politician should flip-flop. Most troubling is the fact that McCain judged this ad expedient because it can find a sympathetic audience among the GOP base.

Read the rest at Commentary.

Author: Kejda

Born: Tirana, Albania Residing: New York, NY University of Waterloo, Economics '08

One thought on “Republicans and Immigration—The Elephant in the Room”

  1. You state you are “pro-immigration” and also a dyed in the wool zionist. Questions:

    a. do you support open immigration for Israel. If not, why not?
    b. Do you think mass immigration changes the culture, and thus government? For example, do you think California is a better place to live post-mass immigration, vs, say 1965? I would think it was common sense, but how long do you think our Constitution, which you claim to ‘love’ would last if the country were all immigrants from cultures were individual liberty and free expression are not honored or respected?
    c. How many people is enough? Half a billion as projected if immigration continues at it current rate. Shall we build on national parkland ?? Farmland? Is there some correlation between ease of property ownership (high land to people ratio) and freedom and liberty?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.