Mac and "amnesty for illegals"

This is almost more tricky than the "Third Rail" of Social Security. Mark Krikorian at the Corner posts:

Kaus points to an editorial at the top immigration-lawyer site on the web that only with McCain in the White House can amnesty pass Congress:

While there are a few areas of agreement between Mr. McCain and Democrats, immigration is the largest issue on which Democrats and McCain agree. While the current Republican Party platform is the most anti-immigrant one in memory, there were news reports that Mr. McCain, who has a long track record of being pro-immigration, tried to make it more immigration-friendly and failed. This is the issue on which he is most likely to stab his party's anti-immigrationist wing in the back both in his political interests and due to his own convictions (Mr. McCain had to fight his party's anti-immigrationists tooth and nail during the Republican primaries). We expect to see almost all of the original McCain-Kennedy bill become law during the first six months of a McCain Presidency. [my emphasis — MK]

The Bush era has been the worst in memory for immigration advocates. However the combination of a powerful Democratic majority in Congress with Mr. McCain as President offers the best hope for speedily obtaining desperately needed immigration benefits.

I think the editorial is a little optimistic, but there's really no question that McCain would be much more likely to succeed in pushing amnesty through Congress than Obama. But I'm not sure I agree with Mickey's characterization of conservatives as "the biggest suckers on the planet" — those who believe that Amnesty John has really changed his mind are indeed suckers, but there could be those who, say, really think Obama would pull out of Iraq precipitously (don't count on it, Kos Kids) and to avoid that are willing to risk busting open the borders (America's borders, that is). Not much of a deal, in my opinion, but to each his own — just so long as no one is surprised at what McCain does once he's in office.

Okay, let's get one thing out of the way first. Everyone knows that Krikorian is a shit-stirrer on the immigration issue. We need shit-stirrers but, once they've gotten the mud mixed in with the drinking water, the rest of us have to try to get something potable out of the mess and live with the results.

As anyone who had read this blog for a while knows: I thought the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill was a halfway decent compromise given that Americans (as usual) are split down the middle on the issue. I disagreed with a lot of the details (especially those having to do with legal immigration such as "chain migration" which must be stopped - it's out of control.)

But, when it came to illegal immigration such as the "amnesty" and "migrant worker" programs, I figured the M/K bill was the best compromise that we could get considering how many conflicting agendas are at play. That's one of the many reasons that "purist" conservatives have misgivings about Mac but one of the many reasons that I am supporting him. He's a realist - pragmatist - when it comes to immigration.

Illegal aliens aren't going to disappear in a puff of smoke and we are not going to round them up at gunpoint onto busses and deport them. Yes, lots of them are nasty criminals who escaped justice in Mexico (and other countries) and commit heinous crimes here but most of them are just regular decent folks seeking freedom and opportunity in the most free, forgiving and kindest nation in the world.

McCain will probably sign an "amnesty" bill just as that other pragmatist, Ronald Reagan, did. Only this time it will not be as soft as Ronnie's compromise. There will be penalties and prices to be paid but it will still not include "rounding them up and deporting them" as the "purists" "theorists" "abstractionists" and "idealists" would like. It will simply be a practical solution - the way we Americans usually deal with problems.