How illegal immigration became the issue

Reason's David Wiegel describes what a certain well-known blogger would call an "Army of Davids":

Social Security reform hit the rocks after the president stumped relentlessly; immigration reform has taken center stage even as the president did his best to ignore it. Why? Support for the former reform was top-down, but passion for the latter issue was real and bubbled up from citizen activism. Virtually all of the lobbying for Social Security reform came from beltway think tanks or groups somehow aligned with the GOP. Virtually all of the lobbying for immigration came from completely unconnected groups - the Minutemen, talk radio, cable news. Whatever your stance on the border debate, it's a nice reminder of how little control the executive actually has over the course of events.

President Bush may be trying to appease the GOP base by sending National Guard troops to the border, but the Washington Times says proposed immigration legislation will dramatically increase the number of legal immigrants allowed in the country. Which is perfectly fine, if you ask me - on balance I think immigration is a good thing, if it's adequately controlled.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at May 15, 2006 07:07 PM