The Republican position on illegal immigration should be to demand tough employer sanctions, including jail, and coupling that program with a vigorous guest worker program to bring needed workers in legally, pay them a living wage and then escort them out when they are no longer needed. The United States, in need of a younger population to pay for our current and future retirees, should also raise the allowed levels of immigration.
Both parties are hypocritical on immigration. Democrats, controlled by unions, want Latinos to vote but not work. Republicans, controlled by agribusiness interests, want them to work but not to vote. The answer is to stand up to union and to agribusiness pressure and take tough action to stop the hiring of illegal immigrants.
If there were no jobs for illegals outside of guest-worker programs, there would be no need for amnesty. They would all go home of their own accord or wait until they got legal status.
We would need a foolproof, biometric identity card to speed identification of those eligible for employment to accompany the sanctions against hiring illegals, but this is a small price to pay for an answer to so pressing a problem.
But Obama will not take the step that could end illegal immigration. Why? Because he wants immigration. He seeks to reshape the partisan balance in America by increasing the number of Latino voters and marrying them to the Democratic Party by provoking Republicans who just want law and order to appear as racist to Hispanic-Americans.
His is a game of great duplicity and racial opportunism. But good legislation can defeat his designs and solve one of our most pressing domestic problems at the same time.