November 20, 2006

Amnesty Likely for Illegals as Issue Drops Off Bredesen's Radar

The Tennessean reports that the takeover of Congress by Democrats makes it more likely that illegal immigrants living in the United States "are more likely to find paths to citizenship" in any illegal immigration reform passed by Congress. "Paths to citizenship" is a euphemism for amnesty for the estimated 12 million illegals currently in the country.

The story includes an estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center that the illegal population in Tennessee now numbers between 100,000 and 150,000.

With the Democratic Congress and the Bush administration set to reward illegal immigrants with a "path to citizenship," a policy that will, no doubt, merely entice more illegals to cross the border, it increasingly will be up to the individual states to decide whether they will continue to be magnets for illegals, or not.

Tennesseans overwhelmingly believe illegal immigration is bad for their state. But will anything be done about it? Have you heard Gov. Phil Bredesen utter one word about dealing with illegal immigration at the state level now that he's safely re-elected to a second term? No. And I doubt you will. The governor didn't even mention the issue when he was ticking off the list of his second-term priorities during his victory speech on election night.

As I wrote here on September 5: "Bredesen didn't care about illegal immigration two months ago. Two months from now, after the election, he won't either."