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Sept. 8, 2010
Rabbi Dov Fischer: iPods and why our prayers aren't answered
Caroline B. Glick: What Glenn Beck can teach Israel
Sept. 7, 2010
Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz: Beginnings: Why Rosh Hashana can affect the entire year
Jeff Jacoby: Victims on the road to 'peace'
Sept. 3, 2010
Rivy Poupko Kletenik: How to beat those down-home High Holiday blues
Caroline B. Glick: The new Netanyahu?
Mona Charen : Why These Talks Are Doomed
Ground Zero Mosque Investor Was Terror Contributor (INVESTIGATIVE VIDEO)
Sept. 2, 2010
John Rosemond: What do today's children seriously lack that children in the 1950s and before enjoyed in abundance?
Evan Gahr: Seems Bloomberg truly CAIRs
Thomas H. Maugh II: Diabetes drug found to reduce cancer risk
Sept. 1, 2010
Michael B. Oren: Reason for optimism in Mideast talks
Nat Hentoff: What hath the Ground Zero imam wrought?
August 31, 2010
Mark Johnson: Scientists unveil new step in less-controversial stem-cell efforts
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Not a Muslim, but there's certainly legitimate room for concern over Obama's recent repeated actions
August 30, 2010
Peter J. Sampson and Jean Rimbach: Tenants don't see imam as 'healer'
Andrew Silow-Carroll: Fly the friendly skies --- or go to Israel
August 27, 2010
David Hazony: The Mystery of Goodness
Caroline B. Glick: Accepting the unacceptable
August 26, 2010
John Rosemond: ‘Fixing’ Son's Shyness
George Will: The Mideast mirage
Paul Greenberg: Rare Sighting: Common Sense from the Bench
August 25, 2010
Ariella Marcus: New prayer book uplifts as it enlightens
Nat Hentoff: Am I also a bigot? Pols clueless on Ground Zero mosque
Sarah Tully: Muslim employee is taken off Disney's schedule after deciding she no longer wants to wear uniform
August 24, 2010
Steven Emerson: A 'moderate Muslim' exposed
Cal Thomas: Pointless Talks
Wesley Pruden: The 'Zionist plot' to build a mosque
August 23, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Reclaiming what's yours through deception
George Will: The 'two-state' delusion
August 20, 2010
Rabbi Dov Fischer on his divorce and responsibility
Caroline B. Glick: Dusk in Iraq
August 19, 2010
Jeff Jacoby: The 'disengagement' disaster, five years on
George Will: Skip the lectures on Israel's 'risks for peace'
Matt Flegenheimer: Hypercompetitive overachievers bet on their own academic success
August 18, 2010
Suzanne Fields: The New Dance on a Pinhead
Richard Z. Chesnoff: A Film Unfinished: The Warsaw Ghetto As Seen Through Nazi Eyes
Lee Margulies: Dr. Laura to leave radio show amid controversy

(INCLUDES VIDEO)

August 17, 2010
Dennis Prager: Same-Sex Marriage and the Insignificance of Men and Women
Caroline B. Glick: Standing on a landmine
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Obama's 'Teachable' Shariah Moment
August 16, 2010
Arnold Ahlert: You've Lost America, Mr. President
George Will: Israel will not be a 'perfect victim'
August 13, 2010
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: What does 'doing the right thing' entail?
Caroline B. Glick: Guide to the Perplexed
Jon Stewart: Charlie Rangel's War (VIDEO!)
August 12, 2010
George Will: Israel's anti-Obama
Larry Elder: Is Obama Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Arab and Muslim World?
August 11, 2010
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: How to talk to a neo-Nazi (POWERFUL!)
Rene Stutzman: Muslim-turned-'infidel', now 18, is ready to begin life anew
August 10, 2010
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Coming to grips with shariah

Jewish World Review Nov. 9, 2006 / 18 Mar-Cheshvan, 5767

Immigration bust

By Linda Chavez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Iraq was clearly the election issue that turned the tide against Republicans, but one issue that many GOP activists thought might save the day ended up a bust: immigration.


Hard-liners in the House stopped comprehensive immigration reform in its tracks this summer, dealing a blow to the White House. Then they argued this was good for Republicans because Americans put illegal immigration at the top of their policy agenda and had no interest in comprehensive reform. Judging from the election results, the hard-liners were wrong.


In several high-profile races where illegal immigration was a key issue, the anti-immigrant candidate lost big. In Arizona, the front line in the immigration wars, Republicans J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf lost handily to more moderate voices. Hayworth, a six-term congressman, once favored a guest worker program but flip-flopped when he sensed bashing immigrants was a surer ticket to re-election.


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In his book "Whatever It Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security and the War on Terror," Hayworth called for a three-year ban on legal immigration from Mexico, which would devastate the U.S. agricultural community and hurt other industries as well. Apparently voters in Arizona's 5th Congressional District wanted no part of Hayworth's proposed ban.


Graf, a former state representative and member of the extremist Minuteman Project, was even more off base. Graf supported calls to reinstate "Operation Wetback," a 1950s federal deportation program that not only rounded up thousands of illegal aliens but also ensnared some U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. Graf's position garnered him only 42 percent of the vote in a reliably conservative district.


In Colorado, Republicans' anti-immigrant stance may have cost them the governor's race in addition to one congressional seat. Rep. Bob Beauprez, the Republican who gave up his seat to run for governor, claimed that illegal immigration would prove to be Democrat Bill Ritter's "Achilles' heel" and spent much of the last few weeks of the campaign hammering away on the issue. But Colorado's agricultural economy is heavily dependent on immigrant workers (including illegal aliens), and Ritter's pro-guest worker position helped him win 56 percent of the vote.


Meanwhile, Beauprez's open seat went to the Democrat, Ed Perlmutter, despite Republican candidate Rick O'Donnell's effort to make illegal immigration a central issue in that campaign as well. O'Donnell proposed a bizarre plan to draft boys in their last semester of high school to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border "instead of wasting time in 12th grade," describing his plan as a "society-wide rite of passage into manhood" that would provide a "sense of adventure and risk." Needless to say, residents of Colorado's 7th Congressional District didn't agree.


And perhaps in the most surprising loss of all, Indiana voters rejected Republican Rep. John Hostettler, chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee. Hostettler led efforts to pass a get-tough bill that included a provision to make felons of all 12 million illegal aliens living in the U.S., which was dropped in conference with the Senate. Hostettler — who, unlike most Republicans, voted against authorizing the Iraq war — was trounced by his opponent, despite campaign help from a number of anti-immigration groups and appearances by anti-immigrant luminaries Phyllis Schlafly and Bay Buchanan.


According to an Election Day poll by Republican pollster Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, only 8 percent of voters ranked immigration as their top issue, making it, at best, a second-tier issue. Americans want a secure border, but a majority supports comprehensive reform as the best means to stopping illegal immigration.


Americans also want to make sure illegal aliens don't exploit social services and aren't given special preferences. Most importantly, they want to ensure that all immigrants learn English and that government function in English, as Arizona voters demonstrated by supporting initiatives dealing with those specific issues on Tuesday.


Now that the people have spoken, maybe the Congress will finally listen and pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)

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© 2006, Creators Syndicate

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