Huck Turns Tough on Immigration
The following piece is produced by HuffPost's OffTheBus.
Lest he be mistaken for a "compassionate conservative," Mike Huckabee decided to take a ride on the anti-immigrant Tancredomobile. With timing some of his handlers must be labeling as unfortunate, Huckabee, on the eve of the Univision debate in Miami, announced a "9-Point Strategy for Immigration Enforcement and Border Security," a.k.a. the "Secure America Plan." It ranks the top spot on the "Issues" page of his campaign website.
Most of the plan is old news, comprised of strategies hawked by most of the candidates in both parties. But three aspects of the plan need a deeper look.
First, Huckabee promotes a 120-day window during which "illegals" can register with the feds, return to their home countries, and then...wait. Why would they do that? Because if they don't, and they get caught and deported, they will be "barred from future reentry for a period of 10 years." There's just one big problem with this idea: it's already the law. Our current immigration statute sports 3-year, 10-year and permanent bars to reentry for the bulk of aliens here unlawfully now. Too bad Huckabee's staff never bothered to check this with a lawyer before throwing it up on the web. (And the idea that 12-20 million aliens will take advantage of this great deal so as to be able to wait abroad for their "place in line" beggars belief.)
Next, Huckabee proposes to reform the current system by, among other things, eliminating the green card category for siblings. Whatever happened to "family values?" Yet, paradoxically, Huckabee wants to tweak the "process so that those patiently and responsibly seeking to come here legally will not have to wait decades to share in the American dream." There's only one way to do that, and that's to add hundreds of thousands of visas to the current backlogged quotas. Either he's not aware of that and will have to backtrack, or he is aware of it and is hiding the fact from his fans, who probably wouldn't approve.
Finally, many have noted that the "Huckabee" plan is really the Mark Krikorian (Center for Immigration Studies) plan, almost to the word. This sends two messages: Huckabee's team can't be bothered to form an original thought; and Huckabee won't be "soft" on immigration, despite his earlier support for the Bush-McCain-Kennedy plan and his prior kind thoughts toward immigrants.
The big question now is how Latinos viewing the Miami Univision debate will reconcile the old nice Mike with the new tough one. As the debate transcript shows, none of the candidates gave any quarter on border issues.
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ANOTHER BS'ER LIKE BUSH!! DO WE REALLY NEED ANY MORE OF THAT TYPE?? HO HUM...MORE BULL CRAP......
Mike "The Huckster" Huckabee is a horrible and hypocritical lightweight with a barely moderate IQ, whose alleged "off the cuff wit" actually consists of nothing more than an endless stream of hackneyed one-liners stolen straight from tee-shirts, bumper strips, coffee mugs, and Joke-Of-The-Day Calendars. He has no foreign policy experience or perspective and his only appeal to the earth-tone worshiping Barc-O-Lounger Crowd in meatloaf-chomping Middle America is his smug claim of being a true Bible-beating Christian Conservative and former Baptist preacher. How the unwashed masses can be so easily swayed by someone so obviously hollow and transparent is sad testament to the dumbing down of this country as a whole. Fortunately, however, I think he will only succeed in muddying the campaign water for the front-runner Republican candidates and strengthening the Democratic party's chances of taking back the White House. So I suppose I should actually be thanking him at the same time that I would dearly love to see him tarred and feathered--in Jesus's name, of course. Amen.
The doors were thrown open to illegal imigrants in 2001, no w all of a sudden it is a hot topic. If we give them all amnesty what meaning do our laws really have? Should we think of giving amnesty to all the non-violent drug prisoners? We should release all non-violent drug law offenders from prison because drug laws are more meaningless than immigration laws?
Regardless of who wins, congress will stop any attempt at change. They can't allow business as usual to stop, Congress no longer needs the people,it has its own agenda. The entrenched,old farts need a slap in the face.!When taxes go up 25% to pay for this bullshit maybe you all will wake up! Congress gets paid if they don't get anything done, so they don't do anything, Its not about the candidates its about a backwards, antiquated
Nothing good has ever come from "Hope" Arkansas.
Talk is CHEAP. Actually doing something about immigration will be EXPENSIVE.
Where is all this money going to come from--
OH right---the usual ---not at the expense of the affluent and corporations.
Hucka-woo-woo wears silk underpants, and now trying to pretend they are jockstraps. Give me a break.
Is the Republican party so scared of Rudy Giuliani and his felon friends that they are scared to remove him from the caucus? This man is a habitual liar, no sense of commitmen, (just ask his ex-wives and distraught children), has no morals, used my tax money to provide protection to his girl friend, ( instead of buying a cheap condom from his own pocket). Wake up Republicans, Rudy does not deserve a single vote.
We need to enforce the current immigration laws...on both the illegal aliens and those that employ them.
Don't bother with the red herring that it is physically impossible to deport 20 million illegal aliens. They didn't get here over night and we can't deport them overnight.
It's not about racism or bigotry...
I like Huckabee's thinking. Come forward and register and return home for a chance of returning legally. If you don't or get caught coming back...she
Same goes for the employers.
you notice he isn't so tough on gun laws, other wise, his son would be in jail for smuggling a gun onto an airplane. what a hypocrite
I like clear cut choices, Huck will bring theocracy to America, that is fairly fucking clear.
Huck has tapped into what everyone wants to hear...it'
I guess Huck's pollster can't count. Immigration may be about the only thing that the GOP can think of to make noise about, but it's a loser issue with the electorate.
Goodnight, Huck! Greater America will not be voting for a deceitful Bible-Belt bigot in 2008.
Flippy-flop. Like a trout on a pier.
I am intrigued that both the Huffington Post and Drudge Report are targeting Huckabee. Is he really worse than Hillary and Giuliani?
Huckabee has unfortunately fallen into the trap of politics - pandering to a political base that has lost sight of humanity.
Ohg.
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