Open Borders Booed at CPAC

By Phil Kent

he immigration panel at the annual three-day Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., always ignites the most fireworks. This year's event at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center, attended by over 4,000 activists, was no exception. In fact, with the 2004 election behind them, it seems many conservatives are angrier than ever over President George W. Bush's proposed guestworker/amnesty proposal.

The president, for the uninitiated, proposed (for the second time in a year) that illegal immigrants could apply for "temporary worker status" for up to six years, getting many of the benefits of citizenship ranging from a driver's license to Social Security checks. To facilitate this, Bush is asking Congress to hike the number of legal green cards for immigrants each year - yet he never specified how many millions would be needed. Incredibly, Bush at one point said these "temporary" workers could apply for citizenship "in the normal way." (Of course, then they wouldn't be "temporary.") Finally, the Bush plan would allow these workers to bring their entire families with them for the duration of their work permits, no doubt producing more "American" anchor babies in the process.

CPAC attendees - at least half estimated to be under 25 years of age - heard from four panelists on the touchy immigration issue: Eagle Forum president Phyllis Schlafly, a heroine of the modern conservative/populist movement; sharp-tongued Tamar Jacoby, senior fellow of the open-borders Manhattan Institute; Roy Beck, affable head of the Washington-based NumbersUSA; and libertarian Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and now the head of The Free Enterprise Fund. Yours truly, representing the Monterey, Va.-based Americans for Immigration Control, served as the panel moderator.

My opening statement reminded everyone of a fundamental American principle: "Uphold the rule of law." I noted the bipartisan acceptance of so-called "multiculturalism" to excuse the lack of enforcement of immigration laws already on the books. I recited numbers: Over one million illegal aliens sneaking across our borders every year; over one million legal immigrants (mostly from the Third World) pouring in; and over a half-million babies born to foreigners on U.S. soil annually. I quoted the Center for Immigration Studies that there could be over 15 million illegals now in the U.S. I noted the tremendous strain this invasion has on taxpayers - and hoped panelists would touch not only on the numbers and their impact but on the issue of services being granted to illegals ranging from drivers' licenses to in-state college tuition breaks. Then there was a big question for panelists to address: "Is this so-called "cheap labor" really cheap?

Schlafly, whose first book A Choice Not an Echo became an instant best-seller in the 1960s, took six minutes to articulately cite chapter and verse as to why the president's amnesty plan is so expensive and dangerous to our economy and culture. She said that state and local police, of whom we have at least 670,000, should be the first line of defense against criminals ("not the minuscule 2,000 federal investigators assigned to immigration enforcement," as she put it.). But "local police are being shackled by city officials." Schlafly praised those members of Congress bucking their own leadership to push legislation to bring these law enforcers into the fight.

She also noted a growing number of cities have adopted "sanctuary" ordinances banning police from asking people about their immigration status unless they are suspected of committing a felony, are a threat to national security or have been previously deported. "But how are the police going to know if they have previously been deported unless they first ascertain who they are?" Schlafly queried.

She drew audible gasps from the crowed by pointing out that any newly-minted "temporary" workers under the Bush plan also qualify for Social Security benefits if a "totalization" agreement with Mexico passes congressional muster. That would swiftly bankrupt the system the president claims he is trying to save!

Jacoby spoke next and boldly declared, "I support the president's guest worker program." The response? A torrent of booing and shouts of "no" - much to the shock of her badly outnumbered supporters. I couldn't help but notice that many of those 20-something College Republicans in the audience were very vocal leaders of the, uh, displeasure.

Jacoby- a former deputy editor of The New York Times editorial page and author of a book titled Someone Else's House: America's Unfinished Struggle for Integration - insisted that more cheap labor really is necessary. She repeated the mantra that the influx of foreign workers are only taking jobs Americans didn't want. (Schlafly and Beck immediately fired back on these points after the question-and-answer period began.)

Interestingly, Jacoby reinforced her CPAC speech a week later with an essay in the neo-conservative Weekly Standard . It is amazingly subtitled: "Immigration and Law: The Conservative Case for Bush's Immigration Plan." (Question: What qualifies Jacoby to even label herself a "conservative"?)

She began her piece by reciting the frustrating story of an Arizona border agent who criticizes "all the apprehensions of Mexicans" as "a waste of time and resources." She writes that this agent shrugs, "They're just poor people trying to feed their families." So her main essay theme, which she unveiled at CPAC, is that our homeland security agents are "too busy chasing a busboy or gardener" and may miss "catching terrorists."

In her essay, Jacoby proposes that "we face up to our growing demand for labor, both skilled and unskilled." She gushes, "The White House has nailed down the all-important central principle: If we raise our quotas to make them more commensurate with the existing flow of foreign workers, we can reap the benefits of immigration without the illegality that currently comes with it."

She concludes in the Standard that "the Bush plan is the only (emphasis added) way to restore the rule of law, either on the border or in our communities."

After Jacoby's CPAC remarks, the normally mild-mannered Beck came alive. "America doesn't need any more foreign workers," he flatly declared, and then proceeded to excoriate both illegals and legals as "wage thieves." The NumbersUSA guru cited the number of unemployed American workers (from high-tech to low-skilled) who need jobs- and noted that America's poor people would be getting a pay raise if illegal and legal immigration was significantly lowered.

By far the least prepared panelist was Moore. After seeing the hostility Jacoby received, Moore cleverly proceeded to praise Schlafly as someone he admired while "disagreeing" with her on this issue. (There were audible groans in the audience - mainly from those feisty College Republicans.)

After telling stories that had nothing to do with immigration, Moore trotted out (as he usually does in his speeches) the semi-clever line that "we shouldn't put a 'closed' sign on the Statue of Liberty." Yet he never got up enough nerve to endorse the Bush guest worker plan. He even took pains to conclude his remarks by saying Congress "shouldn't approve any amnesty." If Jacoby was looking for help that day from Moore, she didn't get much.

The questions were mainly directed to Schlafly and Jacoby. The Eagle Forum founder was as articulate at CPAC as she ever was during her 1970s salad days when she helped defeat the so-called Equal Rights Amendment. She bluntly rebuked Jacoby for being consistently wrong - again to cheers - and pointed out that Congress must show backbone by rejecting the Bush plan and passing its own tough immigration reforms, including giving more authority to those 670,000 local law enforcers she talked about earlier.

The panel was finished. But as I reflect on this year's CPAC, there was a curious footnote that I leave for Middle American News readers to analyze. Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich was tapped to speak during another time slot to plug his latest book. The Georgian, basking in speculation that he might be a 2008 GOP presidential contender, has rarely spoken about immigration since his days in the 1980s as a congressional backbencher. Yet his immigration remarks - inserted at the end of his speech - appeared to have been written by Pat Buchanan or the late Sam Francis.

Gingrich brought an applauding crowd to its feet by shouting that America should muster the resources and will so that "every illegal immigrant could be deported within 48 hours." He added that Congress should pass a law that there would be "no judicial redress" to deportations. And he declared that "every foreigner entering this country must be ID-ed."

Whether the former speaker really means what he says is open to debate. But the astute Gingrich obviously senses the immigration issue is getting the public's attention - so he's finally talking tough about it. Jacoby and her open borders disciples were clearly out of sync at the CPAC conclave - a milestone that would have been improbable five years ago.