We conservatives used to pride ourselves on being hard-headed realists, as opposed to those soft-headed bleeding heart liberals.
So here are some realities for you:
1. Birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens is not going to go away. It’s an unintended consequence of the laws passed after the Civil War to make former slaves into citizens, and unfortunately we’re stuck with it. To fix it would require a landmark Supreme Court ruling (which we can never count on) or a Constitutional Amendment (which would take a number of years at minimum to ratify).
2. Thus we are NOT going to deport 12 million illegal aliens. The U.S. Government isn’t going to forcibly put hundreds of thousands of anchor babies in orphanages, tearing them from millions of their illegal alien parents who will then be put on trucks or trains and dump them over the border. That’s a right-wing fantasy, a pipe dream that is never, repeat NEVER, going to happen. Those illegal alien families are here and they’re going to continue to be here as long as there is work for them.
I’m not interested in pursuing nice-sounding daydreams because they make us feel good. I would rather deal with the above uncomfortable realities as they are.
Therefore what can be done about this problem within those parameters.
Bush tried and failed, because base conservatives wouldn’t give up their fantasies. But Bush was busy with the War on Terror and didn’t really try to explain his rationale to the American people.
Gingrich hasn’t said enough about the real problem, which is employers who hire illegals. He can’t threaten them with jail this year because many of those employers–especially in agribusiness–contribute to the GOP (cf. OpenSecrets.org).
The best way is a bipartisan compromise where a President Gingrich or President Some-Other-Republican has to shrug and say “Jailing employers who hire illegals was the part of the compromise that the Dems insisted on”. (While the Dems shrug and say “Insisting on English rather than bilingualism was the part of the compromise that the GOP insisted on”.)
And let’s stop with the fantasies.
