McCain Downplays Immigration

GOP Presidential Candidate Has Switched His Rhetoric from 'Reform' to 'Security'

Sen. John McCain stood apart from the GOP presidential field when it came to immigration. As a senator from a Southwest boarder state, Arizona, he took a markedly realistic view, and it was one reason his campaign almost collapsed last year.

For the GOP base is strongly anti-immigration. But while the party base rallies against it, McCain had co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the GOP's nemesis, to permit conditioned legalization of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants. While his rivals warned that immigrants pose a threat to economic and personal security, even talked about repealing the 14th Amendment, which gives citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., McCain supported President George W. Bush's immigration reform plan. As with his support of the president's military surge in Iraq, McCain talked about the need to stick to his convictions, even if the public did not agree.

But now that he is assured the Republican presidential nomination, is McCain's support of immigration reform still strong? And where does he now stand on the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States?

If you check McCain's campaign site, it does not even list "Immigration" on its "Issues" menu. But a header labeled "Border Security" opens to a page where the word is tucked inside a broader topic, " Border Security & Immigration Reform."

In speeches, McCain now often seems to downplay his former sponsorship of immigration reform. Instead, he emphasizes a modulated security-plus theme. Campaigning in Columbus Ohio, on Feb. 19, he said:

We have to secure the borders first. As president, I would have the border state governors certify that the borders are secure. Then we would move to tamper-proof biometric identification cards for temporary workers, get rid of the two million people who have committed crimes here in this country, according to [Homeland Security chief] Chertoff, and then move forward in a humane and compassionate fashion, not rewarding anyone for illegal behavior by putting them ahead of people who have come here illegally or have waited to come here legally.

He did not mention "legalization" or "path to citizenship" -- though he seems to imply that he would establish this path for 10 million illegal immigrants.

This could be the immigration "straight talk" McCain offers now. Major reform is unlikely until after the election. In the meantime, many state and local jurisdictions are passing their own legislation, seeking not deportation -- which is not in their power -- but forced departure.

So McCain is talking about essentially forgoing federal action and letting the states handle it. That states-right talk can play well among Republicans. But the GOP controls only some state and local legislatures, and may have a reduced presence after November. There is still a question of how to ensure an effective nationwide approach.
Congress has voted to build a barrier along the frontier with Mexico. If successful, it should reduce the number of new entrants. But what about the millions here? If the states implement varying anti-immigrant laws, and if some are effective but not others, the problem is only redistributed among the states. Sooner or later, the next president will need to push Congress to reexamine immigration.

And what can be done? One approach would be to enlarge guest-worker programs, focusing permanent labor immigration on brain-drain applicants while making braceros out of all others. But the 12 million already here are not all workers ready to take seasonal employment and then leave. They include spouses and children--some of whom are U.S. citizens--and many are settled and even assimilated.

In the past, McCain had acknowledged that you cannot deport all the unauthorized immigrant residents. He has argued that a path to legalization is the only realistic approach. But nativist organizations, anti-immigrant talk-radio shows, and his GOP colleagues seem to have forestalled that option, at least for now.

Louis DeSipio, professor of political science and chair of Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), told The Washington Independent that McCain has to convince the mainstream that he will represent their interests, even if they ultimately believe that he won't. Accordingly, DeSipio expects McCain to take "strident positions during the campaign, it being understood in Washington that, should McCain be elected, he would likely accept some version of legalization."

This approach could produce some losses, especially among Latinos, said DeSipio, but in GOP-majority states this should not be a problem for McCain.

Yet McCain's past support for some path to legalization could also be a potential advantage during the general election, particularly among Latinos. As of September 2007, Census data showed that an estimated 18.2 million Latinos were eligible to vote, and 79 percent considered immigration an extremely or very important issue. But, to the degree he appeals to them, he could lose the anti-illegal immigrant voters in his own party.

Some time soon, the now-official Republican standard-bearer will have to decide just how clearly he wants to talk about the undocumented immigrants in the country. In so doing, McCain will have to address Latinos and agro-industrial and other business interests, the Republican base, and the Democratic Congress -- on which, if he wins the White House, he will depend for assistance to pass immigration reform.

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Politics, U.S.