The immigration bill: the beginning of another long chapter

Victor Davis Hanson writes about the immigration bill at National Review Online. Citing Obamacare, the $831 billion stimulus bill, the President's expansionary budget policies, five deadlines for Iran to cease and desist its nuclear program, the red line that cannot be crossed in Syria, the likelihood is that the immigration bill is also being sold on false promises.

Next, Hanson cites the administration's "fluid" interpretation of laws, citing the Black Panther non-prosecution in Philadelphia, the Defense of Marriage Act, marijuana laws, No Child Left Behind, Hanson expects Obama to decide to ignore enforcement of any aspects of the new law that he deems politically unsavory.

In short, the immigration bill is not the end of the problem of massive illegal immigration, but rather the beginning of yet another long chapter in the subversion of federal law for patently partisan political purposes coupled with economic exploitation.

Illegal and illiberal immigration exists and will continue to expand because too many special interests are invested in it. It is one of those rare anomalies — the farm bill is another — that crosses political party lines and instead unites disparate elites through their diverse but shared self-interests: live-and-let-live profits for some and raw political power for others. For corporate employers, millions of poor foreign nationals ensure cheap labor, with the state picking up the eventual social costs. For Democratic politicos, illegal immigration translates into continued expansion of favorable political demography in the American Southwest. For ethnic activists, huge annual influxes of unassimilated minorities subvert the odious melting pot and mean continuance of their own self-appointed guardianship of salad-bowl multiculturalism. Meanwhile, the upper middle classes in coastal cocoons enjoy the aristocratic privileges of having plenty of cheap household help, while having enough wealth not to worry about the social costs of illegal immigration in terms of higher taxes or the problems in public education, law enforcement, and entitlements.