One constant in the immigration protests this year has been the ability of the activists to sabotage their own position. With the White House and the Senate poised to deliver most of their agenda, they overreacted to the House proposal and staged a number of demonstrations that proved so provocative that it undermined their allies in both places. Many of these protests specifically targeted George Bush, although he opposed the House bill and had worked for normalization for years.

Now, with President Bush about to make a prime-time Oval Office speech intended to rescue his immigration reform plan, the same activists are about to do it again, planning a loud and angry response to tonight's speech:

As President Bush prepares to address the nation tonight about immigration, a newly formed network of groups that organized demonstrations for illegal immigrants is conference calling, brainstorming and consolidating its forces so that it can respond to the government with a unified voice.

The We Are America Alliance of 41 immigrant resource groups, unions, churches, day laborers and Spanish-language disc jockeys opposes House legislation that would criminalize illegal immigrants, but it will lobby Congress and compromise to realize its goal of obtaining legal residency for many of the 11 million people who live in the shadows. ...

Bush's plan to dispatch National Guard troops to the Mexican border was not greeted well by the immigrant coalition, which plans a day of civil action Wednesday, with demonstrations at the White House and on Capitol Hill, and the launch of a nationwide voter registration campaign at churches and nonprofit organizations that hopes to sign up a million new voters among legal residents.

"We expect a large turnout of people from all over the country," Juan Carlos Ruiz, general coordinator for the National Capital Immigration Coalition, said over the weekend. He presaged the message of the Spanish-radio address, saying, "Militarizing the border is not a solution to the problem. We believe that militarizing the border is a propaganda tool. We need comprehensive immigration reform."

Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, which helps fund and organize activities for immigrant groups, said the president has to make hard choices. "It's not going to be possible for Bush to thread the needle and create something that makes the right happy" while also pleasing moderates, he said. "We are absolutely prepared to try to bring this thing down if it heads in the wrong direction."

Thanks to the widespread demonstrations earlier this year, the immigration hardliners have re-energized and have pushed both the Senate and White House onto the defensive. This prime-time address won't aim at appeasing the immigration activists but the conservatives who have rebelled at the notion of granting amnesty to illegal aliens, especially without credible and effective border security. Bush knows that the normalization he wants will not pass through Congress without serious help, and this unprecedented speech on domestic policy shows how much he wants to rescue his vision.

Immigration activists, however, appear intent on killing that reform through their arrogant demands and their association with the rabid socialists of International ANSWER. Once content to work quietly to build sympathy for poor migrant workers looking for a better life, the immigration movement suddenly decided this year that they instead wanted to make themselves into a civil-rights movement for people whose very presence breaks the law they want as protection. They marched with Che Guevara posters and slogans borrowed from the reconquista movement, insinuating (and sometimes explicitly stating) that the US has no right to enforce its own borders or its national sovereignty in the Southwest. They squandered the well of sympathy that they had built since the collapse of Simpson-Mazzoli in an orgy of self-indulgent petulance.

Now they are on the brink of doing it again. Just when we can expect Bush to temper his common-sense proposal to help fund National Guard assistance at the border with more calls for normalization, the activists will remind everyone that they demand special treatment and absolution for little more than the fact that the broke the law in the first place, and accuse those who oppose them of racism and xenophobia .... again. Even some of their allies in the movement understand that they have eroded political support for their position due to the extreme nature of the protests this year, and now when their ally against the enforcement-only contingent tries to regain the momentum for reform, they will effectively kneecap his efforts.

Personally, I look forward to their response tonight and tomorrow. Not only will it prove entertaining, but it will undoubtedly remind the White House that the immigration activists do not support his administration or his party and never will, no matter how much he supports their agenda. That might wake up a few Republican leaders in the Senate as well.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Immigration Activists To Snatch Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory:

» Bush To Talk About Immigration As He Gets Caught In Political Pincer (UPDATED) from The Moderate Voice
Tonight all the major TV networks will carry live a speech by President George Bush on immigration...a speech that will be highly significant and could put Bush in a political pincer.

Why? Because he'll be proposing getting the National G... [Read More]

Tracked on May 15, 2006 8:43 AM

» Bush To Talk About Immigration As He Gets Caught In Political Pincer (UPDATED) from The Moderate Voice
Tonight all the major TV networks will carry live a speech by President George Bush on immigration...a speech that will be highly significant and could put Bush in a political pincer.

Why? Because he'll be proposing getting the National G... [Read More]

Tracked on May 15, 2006 8:44 AM

» Bush speech open thread: Hoy blogamos, mañana no votamos from Hot Air
Can we stay home on Election Day? Sí se puede. ... [Read More]

Tracked on May 15, 2006 9:34 AM