Real progress on illegal immigration

Mark Krikorian sums up the recent good news in Congress on the illegal-immigration front, culminating in the House’s passage of a strong enforcement bill last week with no loopholes. The main difference now from the past, says Krikorian, is that voters are holding their representatives accountable on this issue. As I have said for years, polls showing that vast majorities of the American people want the borders protected, or want a drastic reduction of legal immigration, have zero meaning in a political sense. A poll is not an expression of public opinion. A poll is just people passively responding to questions on the phone. Public opinion is opinion that actively makes itself felt in the public arena. For the first time in many years, we are seeing such public opinion manifest itself with regard to illegal immigration.

This is the kind of democracy I care about, not the sharia-centric “democracy” of Iraqi Shi’tes.

A reader adds:

We can also thank the Bush administration for letting its immigration zealotry put the issue of illegal immigration on the map. Had he not been so explicit, so over-the-top with his immigration support, this issue would have never ended up on the radar.

The solution to the problem of liberalism is more liberalism accelerated to its logical conclusion, the conclusion where people get p****d off.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 28, 2005 05:43 PM | Send