Los Angeles Times, CA
07-05-07
Tancredo rides high on illegal immigration
I have a solution. It's a radical one. Scary. Enormously controversial. It's called:
Enforce .... the ... law.
AMES, IOWA — Tom Tancredo is used to anger and hostility. But success is
something else. So when the Senate buckled under a wave of popular protest
and rejected an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, Tancredo wasn't sure
how people would respond.
The five-term Republican congressman from Colorado is not just the hard-line
face of immigration reform. His run for the GOP presidential nomination is based
entirely on a platform that can be summarized in a single sentence: Seal the
border and send 'em back.
A three-day Iowa swing, after the Senate bill's collapse last week, was a
triumphal lap of sorts. But it was also a test: Would victory stoke the forces that
helped kill the legislation? Or, Tancredo wondered, would followers say, "Geez,
we've won the day. Let's go home now."
He needn't have worried. The people who burned up talk radio and filled the
Internet with their fury, who blitzed the White House with their faxes and e-mails,
who crashed the Senate switchboard with their indignant phone calls are still
spitting mad.
"People want something done," said Al Manning, 50, the owner of a sandwich
shop in Waterloo who drove more than 250 miles to hear the congressman
speak twice over the weekend. "We need to stop the inflow of illegals, and we
need to deal with the ones that are already in the country."
Those sentiments were echoed in numerous interviews at Tancredo campaign
stops and a Des Moines presidential forum that drew hundreds of conservative
activists. (Of the six candidates who spoke, Tancredo received the best
reception, coming and going to standing ovations.)
There was also widespread doubt that the Senate bill, which combined tougher
enforcement with a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, was really, truly
dead.
If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) "is willing to do backroom
negotiations and then stick it on the Senate floor without debate, that tells me, if
he has a chance, he will bring it up at the next opportunity," said David Connon,
46, a substitute teacher from the outskirts of Des Moines.
John Makow agreed. His family emigrated from Poland in 1962 after waiting four
years to come to the United States "the right way" — so the issue is personal for
the 58-year-old retired systems analyst from Granger.
Makow suggested that President Bush and Sen. John McCain of Arizona,
another Republican White House hopeful and a leading proponent of the bill, "got
too much at stake" to quit now. "They're going to keep bringing it up, and we're
going to keep fighting," Makow said.
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey last month found that about 4 in 10
Republican primary voters nationwide said immigration was the most important
issue facing the country. (That compared with a quarter of Democratic primary
voters.) The figure was probably high, inflated by the intense emotions stirred by
the Senate debate, but few see the debate ending with the bill's demise.
"The issue is not going away," said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Des
Moines' Drake University. "The only question is how much will be subject to
demagoguery and how much subject to some reasoned discussion."
Tancredo's immigration prescription is simple.
First, secure the borders, doing whatever it takes. Build a fence — or two or three
— along the borders with Canada and Mexico. Station armed guards to block
illegal entry. Then, go after businesses that hire illegal workers, hitting employers
with massive fines and, if need be, criminal charges.
Also, bring criminal cases — aiding and abetting — against mayors and city
council members who establish "sanctuary cities" that prevent city employees
from cooperating with federal immigration agents. (Yes, that would have included
Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani, back when he was mayor of New York.)
Once the jobs dry up, the estimated 12 million people in the country illegally — or
20 million, by Tancredo's count — will go home. No need for the jackboot
immigration raids that are conjured up by his many critics.
"Attrition through enforcement," Tancredo called it, sipping green iced tea on a
shady patio before opening his campaign office in Ames, home of Iowa State
University. "If people cannot get the thing for which they came — a job — they
go home."
Some look at the immigration issue and see a complicated and confounding
tangle of interests and emotions. Not Tancredo.
"I have a solution," he told a Friday night crowd of about 100 at the Quality Inn in
downtown Des Moines. "It's a radical one. Scary. Enormously controversial."
Then he paused and spaced his words for effect. "It's called: Enforce … the …
law."
Blunt talk like that is a big part of Tancredo's appeal