Mickey Kaus points to a WaPo story from the weekend on how the drop in arrests at the Mexican border is yet another reason to pass on amnesty:
It's always a good time for comprehensive immigration reform, if you listen to its supporters. If it rains it's time for comprehensive immigration reform. If the sun comes out it's time for comprehensive immigration reform.
He demurs:
Why, exactly, does the drop in illegal crossings make it a good time for "comprehensive immigration reform" (meaning a reform that includes some sort of amnesty)? If things are going well, why not keep doing what we're doing, namely not tackling the issue? ... Why not wait for job growth to return and see if the border is really more secure now (thanks to the fence and other enforcement efforts "supporters of immigration reform" typically oppose)?
He concludes the politics of amnesty has nothing to do with labor or law enforcement or anything other than pols trying to appeal to what they are told (by ethnic-chauvinist Soros hand-puppets) that American voters of Latin origin want. And since politicians' "drive to appeal to growing Latino vote" is "inextinguishable" they'll say whatever they have to:
But the hair-trigger speed with which "comprehensive" campaigners proclaim "OK, the border's secure. We want our amnesty now!" itself demonstrates why they can not be trusted–not trusted, in particular, to pursue the enforcement half of the "comprehensive" bargain or to content themselves with whatever restrictions are placed on amnesty.
It's the trust gap that's at the core of the political dilemma — the public, rightly, doesn't trust the political class to do what's needed to avoid yet another amnesty ten years down the road. Bridging that trust gap is what amnesty promoters have been trying to do for years — Obama crowing about the level of deportations, Gingrich always inserting talk about "official English" in responses on amnesty — but having been burned in 1986, people aren't in a hurry to be snookered again.
