Since they've cleverly chosen to highlight Tom Tancredo for their sidebar, who just so happens to be a big advocate of Immigration Reform, and obviously Immigration is a major current event right now, I figured we could discuss this issue a bit from a few different angles.

First, let's look at this Tancredo quote, which I think contains a good bit of truth in it:

The Democratic Party looks at massive immigration, legal and illegal, as a source of voters. The Republican Party looks at massive immigration, legal and illegal, as a source of cheap labor, satisfying a very important constituency. The third reason, of course, is that the President of the United States is trying to create a wedge issue here and trying to get a portion of Hispanics to vote for him where they haven’t in the past. So you have these three huge problems with trying to get anything done in the Congress.

-sauce

Now, I think there's a good deal of truth in that comment. I recommend reading the whole interview, he makes some interesting points.

For one, immigration is absolutely is a wedge issue being used by Obama and the Dems to force the GOP's more racist contingent to expose themselves as such. And, connected to that, it does benefit the Dems long term because it helps then cement that vote in their Party.

Conversely, he takes the GOP to task for their historical weak stance on immigration as well (recall Bush passed Immigration Reform back in 07, (much to the chagrin of his base). And he's right that there are many business interests within the GOP that benefit greatly from cheap immigrant labor, especially illegal labor. If anything, I'd argue this is the real reason the US allows such high levels of illegal immigration; because it drives wages down in the US and benefits businesses who can take advantage of a workforce who will work for less and make no demands.

Now, Tancredo has made Immigration his major 'cause'. He ran for President on it in 08, and he may try and run again on it in 2016 or later. He's running for Governor in Colorado next year. It's his pet issue and he's trying to continue to make a name for himself with it. People like him benefit from this being an issue in the media.

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So what do you think, either as a commie liberal socialist bleeding heart who believes we shouldn't limit immigration at all, legal or otherwise, to the Unions who (rightly) believe immigration hurts wages, to the enviros who believe its hurts the environment to the conservatives who believe it's the government responsibility to 'secure' the border to the racists who are scared of brown people?

Oh, and Tancredo doesn't believe in Evolution, so that's fun.