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Quick: What do 61% of Republican and 10% of Democrat Senators have in common? They represent America—at least on the issue of immigration.

These numbers, drawn from the recorded vote on last week’s disastrous amnesty-granting immigration “reform” bill in the Senate, starkly illustrate two related insights about the ongoing illegal immigration crisis. One is that, despite gleeful media reports that “Congressional Republicans” are at odds with most of their supporters on the immigration issue, the great majority of Republican congressmen are not.

The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives refused to even consider amnesty, legalization, or a guest worker program for illegal aliens in their border security bill; and 32 of the 55 Republicans in the Senate opposed the Senate amnesty, despite enormous pressure from the President and their leadership. The bill passed the Senate, despite nearly 2-1 opposition from Republicans, on the strength of overwhelming 90% support from Democrats.

Essentially, the President and the rest of the open borders minority conspired with Democrats to defeat the Republican majority.

Which leads us to the second insight: the strange pro-amnesty coalition consists, therefore, principally of Democrats. Should anger over the immigration debacle cause the Senate, or especially the House, to fall into Democrat’s hands in the November elections, the result will be an unstoppable march toward amnesty and massive, unimaginable increases in both legal and illegal immigration.

On the other hand, if a Republican-controlled Congress also delivers amnesty and unimaginable increases in both legal and illegal immigration, who cares who wins in November? This dilemma places the pro-enforcement, secure borders grass roots conservatives in a delicate position. We must find a way to defeat the powerful minority within the Republican Party that wishes to throw open the borders entirely, without also defeating the majority that wishes to secure them.

We cannot, therefore, stay home in November or become demoralized and walk away from political activism. In fact, we must redouble our activism or certainly see an overwhelming and irreversible change for the worse befall the country. But we cannot continue to offer blanket support to the Republican Party as a whole.

It is thus time to begin withholding donations from the general party apparatus. When you donate to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, for example, you are donating to help re-elect both Jeff Sessions and Lincoln Chaffee and you are giving a vote of confidence to the current leadership of the Party—wherein lies much of the pro-amnesty minority. A less self-contradictory approach would be to donate directly to the campaigns of pro-enforcement politicians, or donate to political action committees, such as Tom Tancredo’s Team America PAC, that reward only those candidates that wish to secure our nation’s borders and visa systems.

Once amnesty is passed, it can never be undone, and the human floodgates will open. This issue is therefore important enough by itself to act on, to vote on, and to donate on. But, interestingly, there is another reason why it would benefit conservatives to take the illegal immigration battle to the long-term and stick to their guns vehemently: just look at who the pro-amnesty Republicans are.

The 32 Senate Republicans voting against amnesty and for better enforcement have an impressive lifetime voting rating from the American Conservative Union of 91 out of 100. This means that on the whole range of political issues, the secure borders coalition is very solidly conservative.

The 23 Republican Senators that voted for the amnesty, by contrast, have a lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union of just 77 out of 100, a full 14 points lower. This should not come as much of a surprise when one considers that to support amnesty for illegal aliens, the 23 broke with their base and joined with Democrats to defeat the majority position within their own party.

Every so-called RINO, or “Republican In Name Only,” within the Senate voted for amnesty. The issue is shaping up to be a very informative indicator of a candidate’s larger set of beliefs. Many of the Republicans touting amnesty have not just broken with their conservative core supporters over one issue. They have broken with them time and again.

Like a number of lesser internal conflicts over the past year or so, the battle over immigration does not threaten to split the Republican Party, so much as further define it as the party of conservatism, giving voters a clear choice between Republicans and Democrats. This is not a battle to be avoided. Immigration and border security could very well become the high-profile litmus test issues for the next several years.

Let the pro-amnesty RINOs (El RINOs?) get their support from the illegal aliens they believe they are so wisely courting. Give your support to the Republicans that are still courting you. But above all, do not give up and go away quietly. CRO
 

First appeared at Human Events Online

copyright 2006 Mac Johnson

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