Are we distracted by scandals while Democrats walk away with the immigration amnesty prize?

Are we distracted by scandals while Democrats walk away with the immigration amnesty prize?

I received an insightful email from reader Karen Sacandy:

Dear Professor Jacobson:

I’m among your many grateful readers, but at this time, the Democrats are like Thomas Crown in the flick, “The Thomas Crown Affair,” who created a distraction over here, while over there, he was stealing a multimillion dollar painting.

But in this case, it’s a total transformation of the American people, by immigration law changes to aid and abet the non-enforcement we’ve had for decades.  All these abuses of power converging at this time are almost COMPLETELY distracting everyone who could bring pressure to bear to prevent the enactment of new law which without question – without question – will alter our demographics and governing philosophy to the point of no return.

I hope you’ll consider going in a new direction.

My response was:

I don’t consider the current fights irrelevant either in themselves or as to immigration. In fact, I think they are quite connected, and it’s possible to fight all at once.

To which she replied:

You may be right. But the bill in the Senate is doing, as they say, famously!

Thanks for the reply. ;^)))

Karen makes a very good point.

Key Republicans have buckled under. The Senate will pass the bill right under our noses.

It is a bad bill. I’ve written against it many times. A group of prominent conservatives recently signed a letter pointing out the deficiencies:

We have a variety of concerns; some of us share only one, others share all. Among these concerns are that the bill:

* Is bloated and unwieldy along the lines of Obamacare or Dodd-Frank;

* Cedes excessive control over immigration law to an administration that has repeatedly proven itself to be untrustworthy, even duplicitous;

* Legalizes millions of illegal immigrants before securing the borders, thus ensuring future illegal immigration;

* Rewards law breakers and punishes law enforcement, undermining the rule of law;

* Hurts American job-seekers, especially those with less education;

* Threatens to bankrupt our already strained entitlement system;

* Expands government by creating new bureaucracies, authorizing new spending, and calling for endless regulations;

* Contains dangerous loopholes that threaten national security;

* Is shot through with earmarks for politically connected interest groups;

* Overwhelms our immigration bureaucracy, guaranteeing widespread fraud.

Reforming our immigration system is an important priority. But S.744 is such a defective measure that it would do more harm than good.

The Gang of 8 bill, if it passes, will go down in history as a mistake as disastrous as Obamacare.  It must be stopped.

Democrats are playing the long game.  Republicans in Congress are acting like scared cats playing a short game for 2014 and 2016.

Update 8:10 p.m. — My back and forth with Karen was last night, but Greg Sargent at WaPo, a liberal blogger with deep Democratic sources, was thinking along the same line in his morning post today, As conservatives celebrate scandal-mania, immigration reform marches forward:

The celebratory tone among Republicans and conservatives caught up in Beltway scandal-mania continues this morning. But the real story is that behind all the hoopla, immigration reform continues to march forward, with conservatives suffering one defeat after another in their efforts to derail it. And that means the day is fast approaching when House Republicans will have to decide whether they are going to pass reform and suffer the consequences from their base, or take the blame for killing it….

This caps a period in which far right Republican Senators introduced amendment after amendment designed to undermine the core of reform, efforts that were slapped down by a bipartisan group of Senators, demonstrating that the coalition behind real reform seems to be holding….

The prospects for passing the bill out of the House are uncertain, to put it mildly. But some Dems think all the scandal mania actually improves the prospects for immigration reform. As one Dem remarked to me, by sucking up all the right’s energy and attention, it could distract conservatives just enough to sneak immigration reform past them.

I don’t know if that will prove true or not, but that dynamic does seem to be one that pro-reform GOP Senators are trying to use to their advantage. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, for instance, go before the cameras and rail about Obama’s scandalous, Nixonian conduct, then turn around and do the hard work — along with Mr. Amnesty himself, Chuck Schumer — of moving immigration reform past one conservative hurdle after another.

In other words, the people using the scandals to maximum advantage are not the Democrats, but McCain, Graham, Rubio, etc.

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