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Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist
Carol
Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of tOR and CRO editorial
boards. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator
based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News
Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable
and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States.
A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School,
Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing
editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found
at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
[go to Liebau index]
 Illegal
Immigration and the GOP
Pay
attention…...
[Carol
Platt Liebau] 2/14/05
By all accounts, Republicans
should be riding high. Elections in Iraq were so successful
that even The New York Times was obliged
to congratulate the Iraqi people, albeit grudgingly; President
Bush’s State of the Union Address was both well-written
and well-received; and the Democrats are about to elect Howard
Dean to chair the DNC.
But there is one issue
that could cloud the GOP’s future:
Illegal immigration. It has the power to split the party ideologically,
geographically and by socio-economic status. All Republicans
understand that if it’s mishandled, it could alienate more
than a generation of Latinos. But there’s another side
to the equation that eastern Republican elites seem to ignore:
The party’s approach to illegal immigration could likewise
alienate everyday, hard-working, taxpaying Republicans in the
Southwest.
Take California. Certainly, at the root of its problems is a
far-left, profligate state legislature dominated by Democrats;
their leaders include ignoble politicians like recalled Governor
Gray Davis, inept Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, and corrupt
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley (who recently resigned amid
burgeoning scandals).
But California Republicans’ impatience with their ideological
adversaries is now compounded by increasing disillusionment with
those in their own party. Indeed, many Republicans nationally – especially
those based on the East Coast – seem willing to tolerate
illegal immigration because of its benefits to corporate America
and the economy generally. The problem is that few of those same
Republicans bear illegal immigration’s costs.
According to the Federation
for American Immigration Reform, illegal immigrants impose
a net cost on California taxpayers
of a whopping $9 billion per year in education, medical care
and incarceration costs. And the spillover effects of dramatic
population increase – one million in Southern California
just between 2000 and 2003 – combined with governmental
complacency on the topic have begun to elicit real anger among
otherwise loyal Republicans.
Just recently, the
Seventh Annual State of the Region report, by the Southern
California Association of Governments, ranked
the quality of life in the once-golden region as a D-plus. Longtime
Californians look in bewildered amazement at the exploding traffic
volume, overcrowded schools, hospitals, and prisons – and
sense something is badly amiss. The fact of illegal immigration – with
Mexican families trying to head north by foot – is recognized
by the state of California; signs along the highway from San
Diego to Los Angeles warn drivers against hitting pedestrians
who might be running across the highway. Worse yet, the lawlessness
seems to be officially condoned; there was no notable U.S. response
to the news that Mexico was actually publishing brochures instructing
its citizens about the safest and most effective ways to cross
the border illegally.
President Bush and
the national Republican Party need to understand the depth
of the rage brewing in California. It’s not irrational
anti-immigrant bigotry – at its best, California’s
great mix of ethnicities exemplifies the American melting pot.
And the state has long been a land of opportunity for anyone
with the heart and the will legally to cross the mountains from
the east or the border from the south. But increasingly, the
legal citizens of California – as embracing and welcoming
as they are – have become convinced that the status quo
cannot be sustained. Indeed, even legal immigrants are increasingly
prone to resent those who “jump line” to enter the
country illegally, thereby extending the wait that their relatives
abroad must endure to enter the country in conformity with the
law.
If Republicans are
planning on long term national success, it is time to stop
ignoring the illegal immigration debacle, and
condescending to those who object to it. Many western Republicans
will resist any immigration “reform” unless they
are assured that a commitment to strict enforcement of existing
immigration laws will accompany it. And a disturbing number of
them appear to be ready to become single-issue voters on the
immigration topic alone.
The fury is real,
and it is not transient. It’s a sentiment
that national Republicans will ignore at their peril. tOR
Columnist
Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial
director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served
as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
copyright
2005
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