Outcry on Right Over Bush Plan on Immigration

HICAGO, Feb. 20 — Amid the crowded field of Republicans vying for a seat in the Senate here, Jim Oberweis seems a most unlikely insurgent. He is a wealthy supporter of President Bush who favors pinstriped suits, tax cuts and a constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage.

But in recent weeks, Mr. Oberweis, a plainspoken dairy owner, has become a leader in a widening conservative revolt against the president's sweeping plan to grant temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.

"The president's plan is just plain wrong," Mr. Oberweis says in a radio advertisement and at public appearances that have drawn hundreds of supporters to his campaign. "I want to be the voice for Illinois voters to tell the president we think illegal immigration cannot be rewarded with amnesty."

Mr. Oberweis is a symbol of a simmering conservative uprising against one of the president's biggest initiatives. One month after Mr. Bush promised the most comprehensive overhaul of immigration law in nearly two decades, opposition to his plan is mounting among conservative Republicans vying for votes in House and Senate races in Illinois, North Carolina, California, Kansas and elsewhere.

With his plan, Mr. Bush hopes to revamp an immigration system widely viewed as broken and to re-establish his credentials as a compassionate conservative — particularly with Hispanic and swing voters — at the start of an election year. But in debates, campaign stops and interviews, some Republican candidates have sharply criticized his position as they seek to tap into conservative anxiety over the proposal.

The plan has left the party divided, much like the growing deficit has. Some Republicans — backed by some Hispanic constituents — praise the president for trying to make it easier for businesses to employ illegal immigrants for low-wage jobs that Americans are reluctant to take. Others argue that the plan is tantamount to an amnesty for lawbreakers. The issue is so complicated and divisive that Republicans in Congress now say it is unlikely that legislation supporting the president's plan will be introduced this year.

Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee on immigration, said he believed Congress would make headway this session on other proposals guiding the hiring of foreign farm workers. He said he hoped consensus on Mr. Bush's plan could be reached "within the next couple of calendar years."

But Mr. Chambliss, who supports Mr. Bush's broad proposal, acknowledged that the plan had already become a lightning rod in some Republican contests around the country. "I've seen it in the Georgia primary," he said in a telephone interview this week. "The candidates there are critical of the president on this issue.

"You've seen a lot of the Republican base has gotten all excited and all negative toward the president's proposal for the wrong reason," Mr. Chambliss said. "They really need to read what the president said. The president does not favor amnesty. He's been very clear on that."

In a Senate hearing last week, Bush administration officials said that illegal immigrants living in the country as of Jan. 7 — a group estimated at about eight million or more — would be eligible for temporary work permits for an initial period of three years, if they can show they have jobs and if their employers certify that Americans cannot be found for the jobs.

The officials said the permits could be renewed several times and that the workers could apply for permanent residency without leaving the United States. By legalizing the status of millions of immigrants who officials say are peaceful and hard working, immigration agents will be able to focus on foreigners who pose terrorist or criminal threats.

Mr. Bush has also promised to stiffen enforcement of immigration laws and to increase the number of people who can obtain permanent residency status.

Vernon Robinson, a Republican contender for a House seat in North Carolina, said that smelled like amnesty. He said his supporters wanted illegal immigrants deported and American troops stationed on the border with Mexico, particularly after the 9/11 attacks.

"There's a major disconnect between rank-and-file Walmart-Kmart Republicans and the party leadership on this issue," said Mr. Robinson, who has raised more money than any other Republican in his race.

Numbers USA, a policy group that favors reducing immigration, has identified about a dozen races where immigration is an important campaign issue among Republican contenders. Many Hispanic leaders have also criticized Mr. Bush's plan for not going far enough. It is unclear whether the issue will be a deciding factor for voters or whether it will dampen enthusiasm for Mr. Bush among conservatives.

Terry Holt, a spokesman for Mr. Bush's re-election campaign, said he believed conservatives would recognize that the president has remained faithful to his key beliefs. "Though there are debates about one issue or the other, on balance the president has stayed true to conservative principles and conservatives respect the president for leading on principle and attacking serious problems whatever they might be," he said.

Mark Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to limit immigration, countered that conservative voters, already doubtful about the president's commitment to fiscal austerity, might stay home on Election Day or vote for lawmakers opposed to Mr. Bush's plan.

The debate is boiling in conservative circles. In January, National Review magazine ran a cover story on the president's plan titled: "Amnesty, Again."

This month, The Wall Street Journal published dueling pieces on its opinion pages. Fifteen Republicans including Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp hailed the president's plan as "a humane, orderly, and economically sensible approach to migration."

Nine conservative stalwarts, including David Keene, Paul Weyrich and Phyllis Schlafly, responded, "Everyone with any common sense knows that it will only encourage a new wave of illegal aliens."

In California, where Republican candidates have opposed the plan in two races, the Republican Party chairman, Duf Sundheim, said he believed the president would ultimately bring people around.

Kris Kobach, a former Justice Department official campaigning for a House seat in Kansas, is doubtful. He says the 9/11 attacks left Republicans more concerned about immigration than in the 1990's when Patrick J. Buchanan criticized immigration to improve his presidential prospects. "When Buchanan was pushing this issue, it had a nativist and protectionist flavor," said Mr. Kobach, who developed the federal program that required Arab and Muslim visitors to register with the government. "Today it's about national security and law enforcement."

Here in Illinois, Mr. Oberweis is the only Republican candidate in his race who has made opposition to the president's plan a prominent part of his message. That stance, he says, has cost him some support.

In 2002, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, supported Mr. Oberweis's unsuccessful bid for the Senate. This time around, Mr. Hastert declined to endorse him, saying he ran a poorly managed campaign two years ago. Mr. Hastert also criticized Mr. Oberweis's decision to challenge the immigration plan.

That has not stopped Mr. Oberweis from calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration. Next week, he plans to release a television advertisement on the subject.

I have read the president said Mr. Chambliss!

Do you really think words on paper are going to resolve this mess???

If you do, then perhaps you control the weeds in my garden by proclaiming that they have three years to show they have a purpose for being in my flower bed!

Or you write words for the Canadian geese that crap all over my neighborhood park that they have three years to finish turning our lake embankments into a cesspool of bacterial flora!

Get real Mr. Chambliss and start by getting your head out of your politicized arse!

Republican candidates have sharply criticized his position as they seek to tap into conservative anxiety over the proposal.

Anxiety is it? To the NYT, we conservatives are a primitive superstitious tribe, who at best react negatively to new developments we are too feeble-minded to comprehend.

Maybe its the spectacle of a Government actively neglecting to enforce its laws, politicians seeking to gather power by the importation of voters, business interests seeking to push wages down, and the taxpayers footing the bill for the massive amounts of Government services the new arrivals require. Maybe that makes us "anxious".

President Bush seems to have a self destruct complex.

This immigration problem will only be solved when we completely close our border to Mexico and ship back all of the illegals to Mexico, El Salvador, Panama and the other Central and South American countries that they came from.

Unless he comes out for this policy, he has zero chance of being re-elected and will probably hand the Senate and House back to the Dims.

FTR Hastert is clueless on the immigration issue. He gave a radio interview with WLS after the state of the union show and all he could do was hit a few cliches and nothing else, it was pathetic. The show's host Debra ( a black politically moderate woman) actually made a lot more sense in an articulate response to his mumblings about "hard working immigrants."

"OMG, Republicans taking issue with GW? Article being posted on FR? The self appointed Bbots and thought monitors won't be long in coming to this thread.
After all isn't it a sacrilege to criticize GW on FR?"

It sure is! Check out this thread, where I am repeatedly attacked for stating that we should expect Republicans to uphold conservative principles, and if they will not, we should withhold our votes until they toe the line on subjects like illegal immigration.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1076096/posts

It's very entertaining. Some waster named Agamemnon calls me, among other choice epithets, a "Judas in support hose." It's all very amusing. He's scared to death that if we disaffected Republicans write in Tom Tancredo instead, that we might get Kerry. I say, if Bush is gonna sell us out on important issues like immigration, what's the difference who we get?

Thanks for the link Henrietta, but I didn't go to it. I have been around here for quite some time and have watched the forum degenerate from principled conservatives to lock step, mindless Republican Party shills.

What the Bbots don't realize is that it is possible to state conservative opinions, critical of the Administration and the Party while still voting GOP, especially given the choice.

There seem to be far too many around here that seem to have the only principle the GOP has these days.

Win at any cost, even if it means betraying both your principles and those of your supporters. They (the bots) really don't understand that they do their party and the conservative movement more harm by flaming fellow conservatives than help.

But, heck after all it is only an Internet Forum. Remarkably , one time a significant force, IMHO, of the conservative movement, but lately relegated to "just another forum". Too many people have taken themselves way to seriously, seeing their screed "in the lights" (in print - on line).

I should have gone to the thread first. There is one great difference between us. Where we both have apparently the same problems with GW, I will still vote for him, where you have stated you won't.

The best line in the article on that other thread is this:

"In any case, conservatives could have hoped for much more in a Washington where Republicans control both the White House and Congress. Having said all that, I intend to do whatever I can to reelect President Bush. The reason is simple. The alternative is unthinkable."

Your vote is your own and I don't even want to suggest how you should cast it. But my vote will go the "Dem Lite" (your phrase describing Bush) and in no way will give aid or comfort to any of the Dem Heavies.

Those are exactly my sentiments. We have laws discouraging feeding bears in national parks so bears will associate food and shelter with their wild habitat. We (said collectively) don't seem to be smart enough to connect this law of the wild to Illegaliens. We need to stop feeding the "bears" so they'll return to their natural habitat....

"Why is this NEVER brought up when this immigration topic is talked about?!!?"

Section 1 specifies a particular class of immigrant (presumed by its wording to be in the US legally) or nonimmigrant (a temporary visitor to the US) and a specific criminal act having been committed for their entrance suspension to be effected.

It doesn't address Illegaliens in the least, so why should it be brought up when discussing those who've illegally entered the US?

Or did you have something else in mind?

ARCHIVES: FROM 2004 on FREE REPUBLIC during the HUGE BUSH 2004 AMNESTY WARS when probably nearly 80 to 90% of FreeRepublic were opposed to the plan by US President Bush and Mexican President Vincent Fox for AMNESTY...REPEAT A.M.N.E.S.T.Y. for illegal aliens in the US allow thing them to stay, so called "regularization."

A position CLEARLY in support of this Bush-Fix Mass Amnesty fiasco split the conservative movement, and people at the time like NEWT GINGRICH wrote op/ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal for example, in support of the Amnesty proposal. Free Republic remained stalwartly OPPOSED to this cockamamie Amnesty idea. To wit:

"The debate is boiling in conservative circles. In January, National Review magazine ran a cover story on the president's plan titled: "Amnesty, Again." This month, The Wall Street Journal published dueling pieces on its opinion pages. Fifteen Republicans including Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp hailed the president's plan as "a humane, orderly, and economically sensible approach to migration." Nine conservative stalwarts, including David Keene, Paul Weyrich and Phyllis Schlafly, responded, "Everyone with any common sense knows that it will only encourage a new wave of illegal aliens." In California, where Republican candidates have opposed the plan in two races, the Republican Party chairman, Duf Sundheim, said he believed the president would ultimately bring people around."

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