First blood in the immigration battle

Jul 29, 2010 — Washington Post

Lee Hockstader

By Lee Hockstader

It would be nice to think that Judge Susan R. Bolton’s decision to block the most noxious parts of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect would spur Congress to fix the nation’s broken immigration system once and for all. Unfortunately, her ruling is more likely to generate more venom in the already poisonous national debate on immigration, and harden the positions of activists on all sides.

You can forecast the likely effects of the judge’s ruling already. Arizona will appeal. The case will wend its way through the courts, prompting talk show tirades and more of the online race riots that pass for this country’s conversation about immigration.

Other states, impelled by ideology or stressed (like Arizona) by real burdens imposed by illegal immigrants, will jump into the fray. In state legislatures, lawmakers -- mostly Republicans -- will push similar or even harsher bills. Those that pass will prompt more lawsuits, and an even messier patchwork of state-by-state immigration enforcement. Some Democrats, seeing a strategic chance to lock up Hispanic votes virtually forever, will fight back gleefully. Karl Rove, who knows long-term electoral suicide by the GOP when he sees it, will tear his hair.

If the Arizona law was a battle cry, Bolton’s ruling is the whiff of first blood. Cooler heads will not prevail; they won't be heard at all. The ruling will only attenuate the timeline for any Congressional compromise on the basic elements of immigration reform -- tougher enforcement in return for amnesty and a more realistic regime governing future legal immigration.

Sure, Congress may eventually step in once the dust settles, whenever that is. There will still be many millions of illegal immigrants in neighborhoods, restaurants, factories and fields, and forcibly removing them in large numbers will continue to be politically, economically and practically impossible -- not to mention morally distasteful given that so many have children and relatives who are American citizens. The rationale for a federal resolution will only grow stronger. But I’d hate to take bets on how long that will take.