Leading Republican Strategist Rebukes Mass Deportation saying Restrictionist Agenda Jeopardizes Republicans' Future!

I've said for years the concept of Mass Deportation (or as the ANTI's call it, "Amnesty" or "self-repatriation through attrition") is Wrong! Now, Richard Nadler, a Leading Republican Strategist, writing for the very Conservative National Review, makes my point for me! He is standing up to Mark Krikorian, Pat Buchanan, Phyllis Schlafly and other Republican demagogues who have been charging their nativist rhetoric promoting Mass Deportation.

Against Mass Deportation - by Richard Nadler, My Summarization:

Richard Nadler is against Mass Deportation. His critics chastise him saying his opposition to Mass Deportation is actually pandering to Latinos and business groups resulting in his abandoning Republican core principles.

Nadler disagrees. Mass Deportation is not a Republican core principle. Rather, the leaders of the Restrictionist Movement (e.g. Pat Buchanan, Schlafly, etc) set out to restructure Republican Core Values to their own extremist views. These leaders experimented with various strategies, including: official English, Fair trade, Nativism, etc. They thought this would be a successful wedge issue. They wanted Working Class Democrats to swing over into either a reformed Republican party or a new “third force." Pat Buchanan had tried this strategy in his earlier Presidential campaigns and it didn't work then. He resurrected it after 9-11. He thought the national-security fears widely shared by all Americans could be fused with anti-immigrant, anti-capitalist, and even anti-war populism. Hispanic “invaders” and their wicked employers might be the bogeymen needed to cement the commitment of the American worker to the conservative nation-state. If talk-show passion and book sales were indicative, the mix was a sure winner. Major groups, notably the Eagle Forum, signed on to the new project, and many others went along for the ride.

The ride was short. Their restrictionist strategy alienated not only Latino voters, but many independent and Progressive voters as well. The sheer radicalism of mass deportation caused an anti-conservative backlash within entire industries, many of them traditionally Republican — farmers, ranchers, non-union contractors, restaurateurs, orchard horticulturalists, hospitality providers, etc. This reaction imploded the Republican party in the Southwest and Florida, damaged it severely in the West, and weakened it everywhere. Nevertheless, sponsors of the mass deportation campaign continue to wage a disinformation campaign (e.g. LIES) to mask the meaning and magnitude of the disaster their project unleashed on the conservative movement.

RESTRICTIONIST LIES:

Restrictionist LIE #1: The deportationist cause (Restrictionism) lost no ground in the 2008 election.

. In the Senate, seven Republicans (eight counting Norm Coleman) who voted on June 28, 2007, to block the Bush administration’s immigration bill either retired or were defeated.

Restrictionist LIE #2: “Attrition through enforcement” is categorically different from “mass deportation.” (I love this one because I say it all the time!)

. Mark Krikorian makes this distinction: Instead of “roundups,” he would reduce the illegal population through “consistent, comprehensive application of the law — something we have never really attempted.”
But that is not what Mark, or any other “enforcement only” enthusiast, advocates. Mark knows full well that the applicable law must be radically changed in order to remove illegals in significant numbers. And he advocates such changes: a mandatory form of data-based employment verification; steep increases in penalties on recalcitrant employers; a vast increase in federal detention capacity; a vast increase in mandatory cooperation between recalcitrant municipal governments and federal authorities; a vast increase in the capacity of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to perform workplace raids; the criminalization of most categories of illegal residence; and the criminalization of whole new categories of harboring and assisting illegals.The basic tools of mass removal are the same, whether one calls the process “deportation” or “attrition.” In either case, a number of forceful actions by government against illegals, their employers, and/or their sympathizers are presumed to induce mass fear among the illegals themselves, and among those who sympathize with them.

Mark is quite aware that such a strategy would trigger severe economic and social upheaval. As he writes, “If conservatives were in fact supporting the mass roundup and deportation of 11–12 million people, losing the Hispanic vote would be the least of our problems.”He is quite correct. Mass removal of illegals would require, by definition, the termination of 7 million labor agreements between employers and employees. It would throw 6.6 million families containing 14 million individuals into crisis — families that include 4.9 million children and 3.5 million American citizens. It would bankrupt entire rural export industries, and throw hospitality-based urban development into havoc. But Mark wants conservatives to remain blissfully unaware of the revolutionary nature of mass removal. New work-based computer software, he says, will handle everything cleanly. Let’s call it Krikorian 2.0.

Restrictionist LIE #3: Hispanic voting patterns are unaffected by the immigration debate.

. Tom Tancredo makes the bizarre point that the GOP’s share of the Hispanic vote are well within the historical “range.” Kirkorian also continues to downplay the loss of Latino votes and unrelated to the restrictionist activities, calling anyone who refers to the loss as "hawkish immigration views."

. Fact: Between 2004 and 2008, the Pew Hispanic Center found that the percentage of Latinos who believe that the Democratic party “has more concern for Hispanics” than the Republicans rose by 14 percentage points — a total virtually identical to the shift in Latino voter patterns recorded in the Edison-Mitofsky exit polls. Hispanics who are themselves citizens, and whose views on immigration policy are similar to those of other Americans, oppose “enforcement only” candidates because they fear that those candidates’ policies will personally affect them, or a friend, or a family member. In other words, the prospect of mass deportation balkanizes them.

Restrictionist LIE #4: Mass removal of illegals will improve the economy.

. Restrictionists assume demonizing illegal seasonal and low-wage labor — and the employers who employ that labor — Republicans will win the support of working-class Democrats. Mark Krikorian advances the new-age theory that low-wage and “low-skill” work is economically counterproductive in advanced industrial societies.

. Economists and businessmen believe no such thing. The entire white-collar structure of management, distribution, and sales in major export industries such as grain production, cattle ranching, meat processing, orchard horticulture, fisheries, and forestry is dependent on the availability of such labor in the United States.

Restrictionist LIE #5: Renunciation of mass deportation implies a renunciation of conservative principles generally.

. Mass Deportation is NOT a Conservative principle. It is morally detestable, economically insane, and politically suicidal.

. If the Republican party embraces mass deportation, the family disruption involved in that policy’s execution will irremediably tarnish the party’s pro-family image.

. If the Republican party embraces the economics of restricting low-cost and seasonal labor, the ranks of the unemployed will swell by the millions — and the unemployed, needless to say, vote for left-wing Democrats far more consistently than immigrants do.

. If the Republican party refuses to negotiate guest-worker measures simultaneously with border-security measures, it will obstruct needed border reforms imperative to crime control and national security.

In short, mass deportation, an option unthinkable in conservative circles a mere four years ago, undermines every tenet, and every goal, of the conservative agenda.