Manchester Union Leader Endorses McCain

New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, the Manchester Union-Leader endorses John McCain:

We don't agree with him on every issue. We disagree with him strongly on campaign finance reform. What is most compelling about McCain, however, is that his record, his character, and his courage show him to be the most trustworthy, competent, and conservative of all those seeking the nomination. Simply put, McCain can be trusted to make informed decisions based on the best interests of his country, come hell or high water.

Competence, courage, and conviction are enormously important for our next President to possess. No one has a better understanding of U.S. interests and dangers right now than does McCain. He was right on the mistakes made by the Bush administration in prosecuting the Islamic terrorist war in Iraq and he is being proved right on the way forward both there and worldwide.

McCain is pro-life. Always has been. He fights against special-interest and pork-barrel spending, and high spending in general, which ticks off liberals and many in the GOP who have wallowed at the public trough. Yet he also has the proven ability, unique among the contenders, to work across the political divide that has led our government into petty bickering when important problems need to be solved.

The value of newspaper endorsements is debatable, and the Union Leader hasn't backed the winner. Nevertheless, the endorsement can't hurt McCain's resurgent campaign.

Rasmussen Reports" latest New Hampshire poll finds Mitt Romney with a nineteen-point lead at 34%. Giuliani, McCain, and Huckabee are in a virtual tie for second place:

Support for Romney and Huckabee in the current survey is the highest yet recorded in a Rasmussen Reports New Hampshire survey. For Giuliani, the 15% reflects his lowest level of support in the six New Hampshire primary election polls.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of McCain’s supporters are certain they will vote for him on January 8. Fifty-four percent (54%) of Giuliani’s supporters are that certain along with 49% of those for Huckabee and 48% of Romney voters.

At Captain's Quarters, Ed Morrissey thinks conservatives might forgive McCain-Feingold long enough to support McCain. Ed might be right, but then there is McCain's failure to support the Bush tax cuts and his support for immigration reform proposals many saw as amnesty.

Brownback Supports Senate Immigration Deal

Senator Sam Brownback joined Senator McCain and voiced support for the Senate's immigration deal during the third GOP presidential debate:

The dark-horse conservative said, "It's better than not doing anything."

With Brownback, Senators support the senate immigration deal by 16 to 6.

Here is the complete exchange from the transcript:

MR. BLITZER: [. . .] Senator Brownback, what do you say about this notion of a pathway towards citizenship for these 12 million illegal immigrants who are in the country right now? Under what circumstances would you let them begin that path?

SEN. BROWNBACK: I don’t think you create any new paths to citizenship. But I also think you allow them to be able to use paths they would currently qualify for, and to be able to get in the back of the line. And that’s part of leadership and getting something resolved.

I think — you know, we can go on a lot of slogans here. And I’ve been around this issue for a while. I was in Congress in 1994, elected then. We did the first immigration bill I was involved in then, in 1996. You know what, that was as enforcement-only bill in 1996, and we had 7 million undocumented in the country then. We’re at 12 (million) to 20 million now.

The point of saying that — and my colleagues and people up here, everybody is concerned that we get something done and get something right. I think if you do exterior enforcement, border enforcement, you do aggressive interior enforcement, and then you work on a comprehensive solution interior, that’s something that a lot of people are going to be upset with, but that can work and move us forward. And it’s better than not doing anything.

MR. BLITZER: Thank you. So you support this pending compromise legislation?

SEN. BROWNBACK: If we can hold together those things in it, those things have to be in it.

MR. BLITZER: So with — you’re with — you’re with Senator McCain?

SEN. BROWNBACK: If those things are in it.

Waiting For Obama

Barack Obama says immigration reform will have to wait for an Obama presidency:

“I’m not going to vote for something if I think ultimately that it’s going to repeat mistakes of the past and not going to solve the problem,” Obama told reporters Monday. “At the end of the day, if I don’t think it’s quite there, it’ll have to wait until I’m president.”

Obama's statement came after he and addressed 500 people gathered for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s annual Rainbow PUSH Coalition conference.

Obama is concerned the temporary worker provision in the Senate deal would create “second-class workers” who would be forced to go home every two years without acquiring any rights. He is "unlikely to vote for an immigration reform measure this week unless changes are made to address his concerns about temporary workers."

Even with Obama's opposition, Senators syupport the senate immigration deal by three to one.

Immigration Deal Likely To Pass Senate

Contrary to conventional wisdom, after the week-long Memorial Day recess the Senate immigration deal looks more likely to pass the Senate:

After a week at home with their constituents, the Senate architects of a delicate immigration compromise are increasingly convinced that they will hold together this week to pass an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, with momentum building behind one unifying theme: Today's immigration system is too broken to go unaddressed.

Congress's week-long Memorial Day recess was expected to leave the bill in tatters. But with a week of action set to begin today, the legislation's champions say they believe that the voices of opposition, especially from conservatives, represent a small segment of public opinion [emphasis added].

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Americans are far more open to the deal than the voices of opposition would indicate. Those polled said they would support a program giving illegal immigrants the right to stay and work in the United States if they pay a fine and meet other requirements, 52 t0 44 percent.

The poll found a partisan divide when people were asked what factors should be weighed the most in admitting immigrants. Democrats tended to say that reuniting immigrant families should be given priority, while Republicans were more likely to say that the skills of the immigrant should be paramount. The survey also found that those who oppose a Senate legalization proposal give a much higher priority to the issue of immigration than those who favor it in some form.

As of Monday morning I could find only 19 Senators that taken a firm public position on the bill. Those Senators support the bill by a margin of 15 to 4.

There will be plenty of arm twisting in the senate this week as the more proposed amendments threaten the deal:

Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), will push to make the Department of Homeland Security consider more of the family-based immigration applications that have already been filed, adding 833,000 immigrants.

Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), has an amendment that would more than double the number of green cards available under the bill for the parents of U.S. citizens.

John Cornyn (R-Tex.), wants to expand the list of crimes making illegal immigrants ineligible for legalization. Cornyn has emphasized infractions such as gang activity and "aggravated felonies."

Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), would like to prohibit illegal immigrants who are legalized under the law from obtaining the earned-income tax credit to bolster low-income work.

Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) would allow reunification green cards to be granted to the spouses and minor children of lawful permanent residents, not just U.S. citizens.

Robert Menendez and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), would attach a sunset date to the new point system that awards green cards based more on education and skill levels than on family connections.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), will seek to prevent illegal immigrants who earn legal status under the bill from claiming Social Security benefits for the time they worked illegally.

The passage of any of these amendments could cause supporters of the Senate's deal to withdraw support.

Ignoring The Constitution May Doom Immigration Deal

The Senate should know better, especially after last year.

The U.S. Constitution’s “Origination Clause” (Article 1, Section 7) requires that revenue-related bills to originate in the House; therefore, some argued that the back-taxes provision in the Senate's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 was unconstitutional.

The Senate's current immigration deal requires that illegal aliens to pay back taxes before becoming citizens, thereby reopening the door for any member of the House to block the proposed Senate immigration deal by issuing a blue-slip, the color of the paper used for the resolution which formally declares that there has been a violation of the "Origination Clause." The bill would then be returned to the Senate for the appropriate constitutionally permissible reforms.

According to the Hill, several House members are "lying in wait for the Senate to 'make the same mistake twice.'”

“We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), said. The House Immigration Reform Caucus that Bilbray chairs, bitterly opposed to the Senate bill, “will use any and every means necessary to see that the American people get the immigration [reform] they deserve,” Bardella added.

The list of House GOP critics who could race to blue-slip the Senate bill is a long one. Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), both staking presidential bids on opposition to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) all said through press secretaries that they are considering any and all options to counter the Senate bill.

Last year, then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, tried to resolve the constitutional procedural issue in the usual way, proposing to attach the immigration bill to a tax bill that had already passed the House. It would then proceed to a "conference committee," where negotiators from the House and Senate hammer out differences between the two chambers' immigration bills. But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid refused to go along with that fix. I presume that was because the Democrats decided they could gain a partisan political advantage if there was no immigration reform before the midterm elections.

Just like last year, the Senate's immigration deal may be doomed to never make it to a conference committee. Under House rules, any member can introduce a "blue-slip resolution" to return the legislation to the Senate, potentially killing the so-called "immigration reform" effort. Why would the Democratic lead Senate make the same mistake twice? Do the Democrats want to scuttle this year's immigration reform as Reid and company did last year?

Democrats Sour On Kennedy's Immigration Deal

Democrats aren't impressed with Kennedy's immigration deal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a statement expressed serious concern over Kennedy's agreement:

Their agreement can serve as a starting point for the Senate debate next week. I have serious concerns about some aspects of this proposal, including the structure of the temporary worker program and undue limitations on family immigration. We need to improve the bill as it moves through the legislative process.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Reid questioned whether "we're going to be able to pass it."

Only two Democrats, Ken Salazar of Colorado and Dianne Feinstein of California, stood beside Kennedy when he announced his immigration deal. Seven Republican senators and two Cabinet secretaries joined the three Democrats.

According to Bloomberg, Democrats expressed doubts over provisions to create a temporary-worker program and to reduce the emphasis on uniting families when deciding which legal immigrants are admitted to the U.S.

New York Senator Charles Schumer said, "There are a lot of Democrats who want to see it improved." New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez called Kennedy's deal "far to the right" last year's Senate immigration reform effort.

Maryland Senator Ben Cardin expressed concern, saying low-wage workers seeking to reunite with their families could suffer.

John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO condemned Kennedy's deal, saying it strikes at "the reunification of families" and expands temporary-worker programs that can amount to "virtual servitude."

Democratic presidential frontrunners, Senators Clinton and Obama and former Edwards reacted cautiously. Hillary said she will study the proposal to make sure it "does not lead to the creation of a new underclass in our country." Obama, told reporters the temporary-worker plan and the merit-based point system must be "carefully examined" to ensure they are "just and humane." Edwards said he had concerns about parts of the proposal, including a “poorly conceived guest worker program.”

West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd said, "We should not give a blanket amnesty to illegal immigrants who want to flaunt the laws of this land."

According to The Ledger, North Dakota Senator Byron L. Dorgan said he would offer an amendment to eliminate the guest worker program from the bill.

House Democrats likewise don't seem to like Kennedy's deal.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said it will be difficult to pass an immigration bill similar to the Senate proposal.

Representative Xavier Becerra, Democrat of California and a former chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said he had grave concerns about the Senate bill.

All in all, not a very auspicious Democratic reaction to Kennedy's deal.

Immigration Agreement Reached

Senate negotiators reached agreement on immigration legislation, which provides a path to citizenship for 12 million illegal aliens.

As I posted here, it is not yet clear that the agreement will manage to slow illegal immigration anymore that did the failed 1986 Immigration Reform Act.

It is not encouraging that the world's greatest deliberative body will be given the 1,000 page text of the immigration bill late Friday, and Senators are expected to vote on the bill Monday. Weeks after the Senate passed the 850-page Senate immigration reform bill last year, House Republicans were finding unheralded features in that Senate bill such as these beauties:

Illegal aliens allowed to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal work.

The U.S. Required to consult with Mexican officials before commencement of any fence construction along the border.

Discounted in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities for illegal aliens who reside in those states. Meanwhile, legal immigrants and citizens who reside outside that state must still pay the full price.

Complete amnesty for employers who have illegally hired the millions of aliens and provided the magnet that drew them here in the first place.

A path to citizenship to illegals who have snuck across the border, counterfeited documentation, committed Social Security fraud and cheated on taxes.

Even more discouraging are the talking points Hugh Hewitt published earlier today. Hewitt refers to the talking points as "four pages of crap." If the Senators recent agreement was truly "reform," could not the agreement withstand a meaningful deliberation? The fact that the Senate is rushing to vote on it too quickly, with only a farcical debate that can not pass a simple smell test can only lead to one conclusion.

UPDATE: RedState has learned that the Senates 1,000-page Immigration "Reform" bill was released to members of the Senate this afternoon. A Cloture vote is scheduled for Monday. If passed, the floor debate will be cut off after 30 hours of additional debate time.

UPDATE II There is no immigration bill:

Multiple Senate sources confirmed that, despite Senator Kennedy and others’ original statements, as of 10:00 PM eastern daylight time Thursday night, “no bill presently exists and probably won't until tomorrow at the earliest” because “the lawyers are still behind closed doors putting it together.” Senate sources also confirmed that “the bill probably will not be online [and available to the public] in its final form until after the Senate has voted on it.” Furthermore, even Senators involved in the process itself offered contradictory reports on its contents. For example, at the same time that John Kyl (R-AZ) was on one news channel praising the bill’s elimination of chain migration – a key provision he himself had championed – Reid was telling another network that that provision would not be in the bill’s final draft.

This Is Reform?

At RedState, here and here, my esteemed colleague Rob Bluey reports that once again a so-called immigration "reform" deal is imminent.

Little is publicly known about the latest "reform" effort. What is known suggests that it will do little to discourage illegal aliens from crossing the Mexican border.

The Washington Times reports the administration, trying to win an immigration agreement with Democrats, is backing away from safeguards designed to target businesses that hire illegal aliens and to prevent a repeat of the rampant fraud that resulted from the 1986 amnesty.

According to the Associated Press and the NewYork Times, the current proposal adopts a point system to reduce the number of family members of illegal aliens that would otherwise be permitted after the illegal aliens are legalized.

The Washington Post reports the tentative deal, allows illegal aliens, who crossed into the country before January 1 would be offered a temporary-residency permit while they await a new "Z Visa" that would allow them to live and work lawfully here:

The head of an illegal-immigrant household would have eight years to return to his or her home country to apply for permanent legal residence for members of the household, but each Z Visa itself would be renewable indefinitely, as long as the holder passes a criminal background check, remains fully employed and pays a $5,000 fine, plus a paperwork-processing fee.

A separate, temporary-worker program would be established for 400,000 migrants a year. Each temporary work visa would be good for two years and could be renewed up to three times, as long as the worker leaves the country for a year between renewals.

Those provisions would be effective only after the federal government implements tough new border controls and a crackdown on employers that hire illegal immigrants, including 18,000 new Border Patrol agents, 370 miles of additional border fencing and an effective, electronic employee-verification system for the workplace.

From the Wall Street Journal we learn it will take about 13 years for illegal aliens, who qualify and have survive the screening process, to become a citizens. The Journal also warns that tougher employer verification rules that will very well impact American citizens when we change jobs.

You are sure to recall that last year a great immigration reform compromise was announced only to fall victim to New York Senator Charles (Chuck) Schumer's belief that the failure to get an immigration reform bill would help the Democrats regain power in the midterm elections.

That compromise dealt with the 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. by proposing to treat illegal aliens differently based upon the length of time they have been in the U.S.:

Those who have lived in the country at least five years would be put on a path toward guaranteed citizenship, provided that they remained employed, paid fines and back taxes, and learned English, a senior Republican aide said. The aide said this group accounted for about 7 million of the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants believed to be living here.

Those who have lived here for two to five years, said to number about three million, would have to leave the country briefly before reporting to an American port of entry, where they would be classified as temporary workers. They would be allowed to apply for citizenship but would have no guarantee of obtaining it. Those who did not would have to leave after participating in the temporary worker program for six years.

The remaining one million or so, those who have lived in the country less than two years, would be required to leave. They could apply for temporary worker status but would not be guaranteed it.

I supported last year's compromise. My main objection to all previous proposals to give legal status to illegal aliens was that it would just encourage more illegal aliens as did the amnesty authorized by the 1986 Immigration Reform Act.

The new proposal doesn't seem to contain anything to discourage the ongoing flood of illegals crossing the border. To the contrary, If enacted into law this proposal will ensure that an ever greater number of illegal aliens will continue to sneak across the border. And why not, we continue to encourage the tidal wave of illegal aliens flooding the country. By allowing those that disregard the nation's immigration laws to remain here and pursue citizenship. This latest proposal sends a simple message - get into the United States anyway you can because eventually you will legalized.

That message will be heard loud and clear just as it was with the adoption of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 ("IRCA"). That "immigration reform" legalized 4 million illegal aliens. IRCA has been a monumental failure. Twenty years later there 12 million illegal aliens to legalize. If amnesty is now given to these millions, then we should only expect that twenty years from now we will have to consider granting amnesty to 36 million more illegal aliens.

I have commended President Bush and his willingness to try and reform immigration since he announced his initiative in January 2004. True reform might well include some path to citizenship, but it must be seen to discourage the flood tide of illegals constantly crossing the border.