McCain Was For Amnesty Even When It Was Called Amnesty
This morning's Politico has what may be a hot story: Senator John McCain, who denies that the current immigration bill constitutes an "amnesty," embraced that term freely back in 2003:
“McCain Pushes Amnesty, Guest-Worker Program,” reported the Tucson Citizen of May 29, 2003. The senator is quoted as saying: “Amnesty has to be an important part because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here and pay taxes here and are not citizens. That has to be a component of it.” The newspaper also quoted McCain as saying: “I think we can set up a program where amnesty is extended to a certain number of people who are eligible and at the same time make sure that we have some control over people who come in and out of this country.”
It's a pretty good "gotcha," but I think the more significant point is that McCain has been consistent in his advocacy of immigration reform along the lines now being proposed. I don't share his enthusiasm for McCain/Kennedy, but I also don't much care whether it's called an "amnesty" or not.
This morning, McCain is giving a speech on immigration in Miami. An excerpt:
The most difficult problem is what to do about the twelve million or more undocumented workers who live and work here now. No critic of our bill has offered a serious proposal to round up all these millions, many of whom have children born in this country, and ship them back to their countries of origin. There is simply no practical way to do that, and most Americans understand that. We have proposed a way to encourage them to come out from the underground economy, submit to a criminal background check, pay fines, back taxes and prove they are gainfully employed in exchange for a visa that would allow them to continue working here. Getting these people to declare themselves and prove they have come here for a job, pose no security threat and have no criminal record beyond entering the country illegally will enable our security and law enforcement officials to concentrate their resources on those who have come here to threaten our way of life rather than embrace it. DHS Secretary Chertoff, who helped negotiate this legislation, has warned that two million people in this country illegally have committed serious crimes. If some of them attempt to legalize their status, we will apprehend them. If they don't, we can concentrate our efforts on locating them and not rounding up lettuce pickers, hotel maids, and babysitters. Most importantly, we can devote all the resources necessary to finding terrorists who have broken our immigration laws, like three of the terrorists who intended to attack our soldiers at Ft. Dix.
Meanwhile, today's Washington Post reports that prospects for the comprehensive bill are looking up:
Congress's week-long Memorial Day recess was expected to leave the bill in tatters. But with a week of action set to begin today, the legislation's champions say they believe that the voices of opposition, especially from conservatives, represent a small segment of public opinion. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who led negotiations on the bill for his party, said the flood of angry calls and protests that greeted the deal two weeks ago has since receded every day.Public opinion polls seem to support Kyl's contention that Americans are far more open to the deal than the voices of opposition would indicate. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll released today, 52 percent of Americans said they would support a program giving illegal immigrants the right to stay and work in the United States if they pay a fine and meet other requirements. Opposition to that proposal was 44 percent.
This week will see a series of efforts to amend the bill, either to improve it or to peel off segments of the coalition supporting it.
UPDATE: One more thought. In the conservative world, the conventional wisdom is that McCain/Kennedy dooms McCain as a Presidential candidate. I've heard that said enough that I was starting to believe it. Now, I'm not so sure. Undoubtedly, McCain's position on immigration hurts him with a big segment of the base. But those are mostly the same people who weren't going to vote for him in primaries anyway, because of McCain/Feingold and other issues. What McCain loses there, he may make up in the votes of independents who, in many states, are able to vote in Republican primaries.
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