Wednesday, July 16, 2008

McCain's Trigger Finger   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

In response to Mark Krikorian's post last night: I have always thought that the key question about McCain's intentions on immigration was just how he conceived of "enforcement first." A bill that put guest-worker and amnesty provisions into effect as soon as some meaningless "trigger" was activated would just be a replay of the 2006 and 2007 bills. If, on the other hand, he meant to move an enforcement bill first and then work on the liberal reforms he favors later, restrictionists would have reason to cheer. They could work with him on the first stage of his strategy, and work against him on the second stage—with reasonably good prospects of success each time.

But we've gotten mixed signals about which idea McCain has in mind. Mark noted that McCain had given an emphatic yes to a question about whether he'd want one comprehensive bill—so we're back to the triggers. But his argument for enforcement first fairly strongly implies a consecutive approach. He keeps saying that the public doesn't trust Washington to enforce the borders and therefore that has to come before the public will allow the other policy changes he wants. Doesn't that suggest that enforcement has to be in place before those changes are enacted? Plus there's this bit from the La Raza speech: "When we have achieved our border security goal, we must enact and implement the other parts of practical, fair and necessary immigration policy."  That, too, sounds like a separate and later enactment. So I'm not sure where McCain is on this question.

07/16 02:05 PMShare