Republican hostility towards Gonzales and even calls for his resignation are, in most (though not all) cases, motivated by pre-existing dissatisfaction that has nothing to do with the scandal in question. That is one of the ironies here — that a Republican administration that never wanted aggressive enforcement of immigration laws (and therefore defended its U.S. attorneys from complaints voiced by Congressional Republicans about lax enforcement) is now attempting to pretend that it fired some of these U.S. attorneys because they did not enforce the immigration laws aggressively enough.
Business has welcomed cheap illegal labor for years, since the Reagan administration, when this flood began. Bush’s most valued supporters are in this camp, and this accounts for his (up til recently) very soft stance on illegal immigration. But the GOP base also includes those most likely to exhibit racist/nativist behaviors, and they are uniformly opposed to anything that smacks of toleration of illegal entry or or granting “amnesty.” Whatever inroads Bush had made into the Hispanic vote, he and the GOP are rapidly losing as they shift towards incarceration, criminalization and harsh penalties for illegals.
2 Comments
April 25, 2007 at 3:58 pm
[...] Over the Line, Smokey!: Gonzales hearings point out basic rift in GOP on illegal immigration: cheap labor for business vs. … [...]
April 25, 2007 at 11:02 pm
We all have our own agenda’s. Mine is secure the border. Food For Thought:
“A LINE IN THE SAND” Senator Mc Caul’s website
http://www.house.gov/mccaul/