Why are we all talking about immigration right now? Why, suddenly, is this the hot topic of the day? I'm not asking a rhetorical question here or one for which I have the answer. I am truly puzzled.
It's not as if anything has changed for the better or worse on this issue. There have been no high-profile human trafficking busts, no busts on corporations that hire illegals. There have certainly been no new political breakthroughs in solving the problem. That would require serious political leadership from the Oval Office and not just playing rhetorical games or joking about presidential Speedos in Cancun. It would require Bush actually to exert himself, to play some hardball diplomacy with the Mexican government which is not about to shut off voluntarily the second largest flow of foreign capital into the country. Why should it take steps to develop its own economy if it can relieve the social pressures of grinding poverty by exporting its poor? And can we even ask the Mexican government to try to develop its national economy while we evangelize the new Moloch, globalization?
Don't get me wrong. I don't mind immigration being a front-burner issue since it reveals fissures in the Republican coalition which too long has passed for a monolith. But since Republicans control the political calendar, why would they push such a risky issue to the forefront just now? Sure, it presents pitfalls for Democrats, too, but I see no net advantage for the Republicans there. And no, I don't believe they are rising above partisanship to solve a difficult national problem. That's just not their style.
Is it to distract us from Iraq? Or censure? Or from Iran's scary new military technologies developed on the Republicans' watch? Or from any number of other depressing Republican failures to govern well? That seems too easy. Do they feel that their base is losing its fervor too close to elections, so they need a reliably emotive issue to stir those still left in the bleachers? But why risk splitting the racists and corporatists? Is it just that they need something new to relieve the fatigue of all the accustomed intractables?
I've got to believe that some group of top Republican leaders decided to make this their issue now despite awareness of its risks. I just don't understand their reasoning. So I ask again: Why now?