The Bill is Buried

Maybe not, but the Senate compromise bill on immigration is at least on its death bed. Either way I think this is a positive development, though not necessarily something to celebrate. We will have to wait and see what happens next - to some extent in Washington, but to a greater extent on the street. We have to continue to fight for real amnesty and change the terms of the debate, the way millions marching on May 1st did in 2006.

One news story described the bill's failure as a "failure of leadership": "Public opinion suggests an electorate open to, but by no means wildly enthusiastic about, comprehensive change that provides the 12 million illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, but only if there is an effective border security plan in place," wrote the Washington Post's Dan Balz. "Republicans are clearly divided, but perhaps not as the heated rhetoric of the campaign trail suggests. The most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that, on the question of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, the public narrowly approves: 52 percent to 44 percent. Democrats back such a plan 57 percent to 38 percent and independents 51 to 45 percent. Republicans are opposed, 53 to 43 percent -- significant but not overwhelming."

My problem with this story is that it identifies the dividing issue on this bill as the "path to citizenship" - some people support it while others do not. It looks at the polls and implies that Republicans have the big hurdle of convincing their people (a majority of whom are opposed to providing a path to citizenship). However, that presumes that the bill offered a realistic path, or even the one that most people polled envisioned. It did not. The people pushing this presumption were the most reactionary on the right (as opposed to say big business), who declared without shame that this bill was "amnesty" and longed for the defeated Sensenbrenner legislation of 2006. Most of their counterparts on the left saw the bill for what it was - a bill created to help big business, that then moved into the realm of Washington politics, opening itself up to the racism and bigotry of the right-wing Republicans in Congress and their friends at Fox and CNN (while Democrats sat on their hands, joined the right-wingers, or tried to keep pro-immigrant activists quiet).

This just proves how easily swayed both Republicans, Democrats, and the corporate media are by the right-wing, and how hard it is to move them from an equally large (if not larger) left-wing. This story didn't mention the CBS/NYTimes poll last month that found (according to the NYTimes), "A plurality of 48 percent in the poll favored imposing some controls on immigration. But large minorities on either side disagreed, with a quarter of respondents saying the United States should open its borders to all immigrants and a quarter saying that the borders should be completely closed. These polarized positions may help explain the bitterness of the immigration debate across the nation." True, but who knew a quarter of Americans want the borders open to all immigrants. Who in Congress represents that 1 in 4? What political pundit has expressed that view?