More on Republican Division on Immigration

Last week, Houseconservatives issued a warning to President Bush and Republican leadership thatthey will pay a devastating political price if they proceed with a guest-workerprogram or anything resembling amnesty for illegal aliens before securing theborders and enforcing existing immigration laws.

“They will remember in November,” Rep. J.D. Hayworth, ArizonaRepublican, said of voters nationwide. “And many of those who have stoodwith our Republican majority in the last decade are not only angry, many ofthem plan to be absent from the polls” this year when the entire House andone-third of the Senate is up for re-election.

Mr. Hayworth and more than a dozen other House Republicans pointed to pollsthat show overwhelming support for their strict-enforcement stance and advisedMr. Bush and GOP leaders in both chambers to “listen to the common senseof the American people.”

One Republican, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, fired a warning shotspecifically at Sen. John McCain. The Arizona Republican widely expected to bea 2008 presidential hopeful at that moment was holding a press conferenceacross the Capitol with, among others, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, MassachusettsDemocrat.

“Those elected officials who are insisting on a guest-worker program anddiluting the efforts of border security and internal enforcement are tellingthe American people exactly whose side they are on,” Mr. Rohrabacher said.”The American people now have that opportunity to make that determination,and they will. Senator McCain and others will find out about that, when theyfind their own career is short term.”
Source: Washington Times, Mar. 31, 2006
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