Actually, I used to me more neutral on the issue until the anti-illegal immigration camp made the case as to how important the issue was.
Now I know that there were occasional discussions about it on FR, but for goodness sake, Bush campaigned about this in both 2000 and 2004 and there was hardly a peep here! So why has this become such an all-out war on FR and within the party?
Mainly because it is now being actively legislated. Before, it was just a proposal - and back then, folks were saying we needed to secure the borders and hold off on any amnesty. But the threat of legislation tends to bring out folks on all sides - we didn't see hundreds of thousands of illegals in the street 18 months ago, either.
For example, if tonight the President calls for first securing the border and then a guest worker program next year, how many will simply say "too late, he won't enforce it, he doesn't mean it, etc?"
Oh, some will, because Bush hasn't done a very good job on both border security and internal enforcement. If he outlines a serious proposal to improve border security and defers his guest worker proposal, that will be good enough for me - but I will also be looking to see if he follows through on it.
If he outlines a serious proposal to improve border security and defers his guest worker proposal, that will be good enough for me - but I will also be looking to see if he follows through on it.
I really don't believe that anything but a building of a wall will be accepted. Even putting troops on the border will be rejected as a serious move as the president himself is such an open border proponent.
I predict that he will call for spending increases that will also be rejected as just glossing over the problem.
If he isn't going to propose a wall then it would be best if President Bush just skipped the speech as it will do more harm than good.