Yes, lets compromise and let in more Democrat voters.

Are you serious? I can't believe that I am reading this here. Looks like I can officially remove this site from my bookmarks.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Was Tom Tancredo booted from office? No, he won reelection handily, while many of his peers lost their jobs.

We need a unified message on immigration, and that message must be strong and without compromise.

If Bush had sided with the Tancredo wing early on and pushed the Senate to play along, we'd control both houses still.

As a registered Republican, I thought the whole "enforcement only" approach was just stupid. I voted against anyone running on that platform. I'm glad Hayworth and Graf lost. It's one thing to be against illegal immigration but it's another to be against necessary reform to LEGAL immigration/migrant worker issues.

I have to agree with Gullyborg.

I think people are tired of the wishy-washy feel good policy of trying to appease the illegal immigration lobby.

The people in this country want the laws enforced. Period.

You close the border, kick the illegals out, THEN we'll discuss letting some of them back in. On our terms, not theirs.

Jonathan is wrong. Conservative Democrats will vote for Republicans if the Republican leadership is strong on immigration. And by leadership I mean the President. If the President is weak on the issue then why would Conservative Democrats vote for a Republican senator or congressmen. The leadership has to give its members issues to support and if they pull the rug out from under them, then what is the point?

Just ask J.D. Hayworth? Just ask his opponet who is as tough on illegal immigration as he was. I couldn't help but notice that no mention was made of the people of Arizona making it clear they want English as the official language of their state. Yeah, the American people want millions of criminals to be legalized. Get real.

You can not have an enforcement only approach. Do you realise the logistics of deporting 11m people?

do you know what the infrastructure for detaining 11m people prior to deportation looks like?

The only practicable option is to try and get as many illegals paying tax as possible, sending back the violent offenders, rewarding those who choose to come forward into legality and trying to marginalise the racketeers who smuggle poeple. America needs all the Tax Payers it can get if it wants to fix social security.

and if you are against a practical solution without your own workable one then your solution is no solution at all.

i can't believe i agree with Shrub on this, but i do, and because its the only sane, practical and economically beneficial thing to do.

Al

Al writes:

"do you know what the infrastructure for detaining 11m people prior to deportation looks like?"

That's part of the problem, Al, with those who think we can't do this. It's treated as "roundin' them all up and shippin' them out!" You're not rounding up all of them AT THE SAME TIME!

It doesn't work that way. What you do is when you find out someone is illegal, through raids, tickets, etc. you send them to jail, and get them out ASAP. No more appeals, promises to appear, or other namby-pamby ways of dealing with them. When they're arrested, they should be out of the country within 48 hours at most.

It will take a awhile, but it must be done if we are ever to get control over the invasion.

When the 15 million illegals become citizens, you can say goodbye to the Republican party. 95% of them will vote Democrat and the Republicans will become a permanent minority party.

There seems to be some rather severe confusion as to how those against illegal immigration want to deal with illegal aliens. Yes, there are those who want to have some sort of massive deportation and if it was possible I would be all for it, however, its not a logical approach to the problem.

The way to deal with illegal aliens is to take away the incentives that brought them here and that keep them here. Go after those who illegally hire illegal aliens. Go after those who rent to and otherwise illegally assist illegal aliens. Cut off entitlement access for illegal aliens. If there is no reason for them to be here then they will deport themselves.

Allowing these people to be given any sort of amnesty will only add to the effective destruction of our already tattered entitlement programs as well as our schools and our health care system.

Then theres the whole guest invader program.. or.. I guess they call it a "guest worker" program to handle the "jobs Americans wont do." Thats a whole other topic.

The original point is correct: If Republicans don't tone down the rhetoric we're going to see the Hispanic vote break for the Dems as severely as the black vote in upcoming elections. Whether we like it or not the Latino vote is growing rapidly in this country, and alienating that vote is political suicide by Republicans. And make no mistake, when you get the Minutemen-type crowd and their shrill rhetoric, it smakcs of subtle racism to many non-whites.

While I respect the opinions of the vehement anti-immigrant crowd, the fact is this is about winning elections. And their opinion will be a losing issue EVERY single time in this country. Maybe some here are willing to throw away the Latino vote (or pretend Latinos will support such radical immigration policies), but I am not.

Why isn't Washington listening to us? They want to think this illegal mess to death, they want to chit chat till the whole of Mexico is here!

This election was lost due to the thousands of jobs lost due to outsourcing.

Look at the States that voted Dem. this time...all States with thousand of manufacturing jobs gone!

Republicans heard that the Dems would change this outsourcing scandal, and voted for them.

Now, they have just shot themselves in the foot for more illegals, all their aunts, nieces, cousins and who knows who, to come here!

I am ashamed that Republicans voted out the ones that were working for strict enforcement of our borders!