Public Opinion in Action

A piece on the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research website by Michael Barone, a fellow at AEI, says that Bush and the Democrats are "out of line with public opinion" on immigration issues.

A key excerpt:

The reason is that the Democrats--and Bush--are out of line with public opinion on the issue. That became clear as the Senate debated a comprehensive immigration bill in May and June. Most Republicans and many Democrats, in the Senate and among the public, turned against the bill. Supporters of the bill tended to ascribe that to something like racism: they just do not like having so many Mexicans around.

But if you listened to the opponents, you heard something else. They want the current law to be enforced. It bothers them that we have something like twelve million illegal immigrants in our country. It bothers them that most of the southern border is unfenced and unpatrolled. It bothers them that illegal immigrants routinely use forged documents to get jobs--or are given jobs with no documents at all.

You do not have to be a racist to be bothered by such things. You just have to be a citizen who thinks that massive failure to enforce the law is corrosive to society.

Quoted from Daniella Perdomo's post on MATT