Pelosi's Immigration Dodge

Two years ago, when Congress last debated immigration reform, it was hard to tell whether the Democrats who controlled the institution were looking for a workable solution or were simply content to have a wedge issue to use against Republicans in future elections. After all, the GOP had during the 1990s made significant inroads with Hispanic voters. Those gains were lost when prominent Republicans began trading in just enough inflammatory nativist rhetoric to give many of those voters the impression that the GOP was hostile to immigration reform.

This time, however, as Congress tentatively wades back into the debate thanks to a new bill by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., it's not hard to figure out what Democrats want. One wedge issue, coming up. What else are we to conclude now that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly informed House Democrats that she intends to spare them the ordeal of having to show leadership by taking on the immigration issue?

According to the Congressional newspaper The Hill, Pelosi assured representatives that they wouldn't have to address controversial issues such as immigration reform until after the Senate does. And if that more deliberative body never gets around to it, then so be it. Pelosi wants to protect members with vulnerable seats.

Put more accurately, Pelosi wants to save her own position and the perks that come with it. She knows full well that, if Democrats lose the majority in Congress next year, she'll be bounced out of the Speaker's chair. So, for the sake of keeping her job, Pelosi is willing to betray a loyal constituency and skirt the responsibility to help lead the country toward a functional immigration system.

The Gutierrez bill isn't perfect. In fact, it's a long way from perfect. But it's a starting point. This debate must not be short-circuited.

And to think there are those poor, gullible souls in the immigration reform community who thought that putting both houses of Congress in the hands of Democrats — not to mention putting a Democrat in the White House — would all but ensure that immigration reform would finally become a reality. These folks obviously weren't paying attention the first time around or they would have noticed that it was Democrats who helped kill immigration reform at the behest of organized labor, which objected to the fact that the bill on the table called for a guest worker program. Unions despise the idea of importing foreign laborers, insisting that it undermines U.S. workers.

As for whether that's the case, that's an argument for another day — or maybe, if those cowardly Democrats in Congress get their way, another decade.

REPRINTED FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE.

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