Fresh Air for GOP in Green Card Plan

Republicans are playing politics with immigration again. But, thanks to President Bush, for once the GOP could reap a benefit with Latino voters, one of the fastest-growing segments of the electorate.

Bush’s gambit to spin the immigration issue the Republican Party’s way began last Tuesday.

That was the day after a little-noted provision in U.S. immigration law expired allowing illegal immigrants who had met certain conditions to apply for a residency permit--the much-coveted “green card’--without having to leave the United States.

For thousands of immigrants who had lived here illegally for years, this section of the law provided the only chance to get a green card without the risk and expense of first returning to their home countries.

The section--245(i)--was allowed to lapse by Congress in early 1998, after only four years on the books, during the spasm of anti-immigrant fervor in Washington, D.C., that followed passage of California’s Proposition 187 in 1994.

That initiative, which would have barred illegal immigrants from public services like education and health care, was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge within months.

But the anti-immigrant frenzy it stirred didn’t calm until recently, when newly naturalized Latino citizens started voting in large numbers.

In December, in an effort to rectify the unintended damage that that frenzy did to even legal immigrants and their families, Congress passed the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act. Among other things, it restored Section 245(i) for a few months, until last Monday.

As that deadline approached, the always long lines at U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service offices grew longer.

And, as often happens when the overworked INS bureaucracy swings into action, a lot of people fell through the cracks.

Now President Bush is coming to the rescue.

On Tuesday, he asked for an extension of 245(i) until Dec. 21. Congress is pondering that now.

But perhaps even more important, Bush made this statement: “It remains in our national interest to legitimize those resident immigrants ... and to welcome them as full participants of our society.”

What a refreshing contrast to the anti-immigrant rhetoric heard throughout the land, when former Republican bigwigs like California Gov. Pete Wilson hitched their political fortunes to Proposition 187. Which is not to say Bush’s action is any less political than Wilson’s.

As Democrats in Congress pointed out, the White House surely knew some eligible immigrants would miss the 245(i) deadline.

Bush could have asked for an extension any time.

Waiting until the deadline passed and anxiety in immigrant communities was at its peak only added to the drama of el presidente riding to the rescue like some cowboy in a white Stetson.

And it worked. Bush’s letter was a big story on Spanish-language TV and in newspapers.

So score a few more points for Bush’s campaign to wean at least some Latino voters from their loyalty to the Democrats, a loyalty that dates back to the days of the New Deal but which increased dramatically in the aftermath of Proposition 187.

Which is why even those Republicans in Congress who still have doubts about liberalizing U.S. immigration laws, like Texas Rep. Lamar S. Smith, who chairs the House subcommittee on immigration, would be well advised to let Bush’s strategy play itself out.

After all, the anti-immigrant strategy used by Pete Wilson worked only once--in his desperate bid for reelection in 1994 when Proposition 187 was also on the ballot. It has been an utter failure ever since. It didn’t carry Wilson to the White House, as his political advisors had hoped. And it led to a nearly complete takeover of California government by Democrats, once new Latino voters started taking out their anti-Wilson feelings on every Republican candidate in sight.

So it’s time for the GOP to give immigrant-bashing a rest and get with President Bush’s game plan on immigration. His opening move was a doozy.