Immigration amnesty by any other name

"Dignity" is just another word for "amnesty" in an ill-conceived law now being pushed by a Miami-area Republican congresswoman. Heading into the midterms, the last thing the GOP should be doing is alienating its core voters on immigration, but Rep. Maria Salazar's legislation does just that. In the Orwellian way proposed laws are labeled these days, this one is called the "Dignity for Immigrants while Guarding our Nation to Ignite and Deliver the American Dream Act," or "DIGNIDAD Act" for short — Spanish for "dignity." President Donald Trump signed an executive order last year designating English the nation's official language. Shouldn't it also be the official language for the short title of a Republican congresswoman's immigration bill? The fact Salazar chooses dignidad over "dignity" suggests whose interests are prioritized here. The bill would grant legal status to as many as 10.5 million illegal immigrants, while expanding eligibility for yet more newcomers to receive temporary or permanent visas. The Dignidad Act makes a joke out of Trump's efforts to deport anyone who's in this country illegally. Beyond the illegal populations that get amnesty this time, the law sends a message that anyone who wants to break the law to come here in the future will probably get amnesty sooner or later, too. The legislation does try to cover a naked amnesty with a fig leaf of provisions for strengthening the border and immigration enforcement. It would add more border surveillance, for example, and, more important, calls for employers to use the E-verify system to confirm their employees are here legally. But there's no need for a Republican House and Senate to sponsor an amnesty to get those benefits. Older conservatives remember all too well what happens when the GOP agrees to an amnesty in the hopes of getting more enforcement in return. President Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to some 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986, by signing what was called the "Immigration Reform and Control Act." But the "control" never materialized, and the Reagan amnesty opened the floodgates to decades of lawless mass migration. The youngest conservatives, who recall the border anarchy of the Biden years, are not likely to take Salazar's bait, either. But there are some Republicans who fall in the middle, neither old enough to still feel the sting of the betrayal 40 years ago nor young enough to be defined by what the country experienced under Biden. They're the demographic that's most susceptible to a "bipartisan" immigration reform — Salazar's Dignidad Act currently has 20 Democratic co-sponsors and 19 Republicans, though the GOP count is inflated by the inclusion of two non-voting delegates from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. The mystery is why ANY Republican would put his or her name to a bill like this, let alone introduce such legislation. Real immigration enforcement is the defining issue of the Republican Party in our time, an absolutely core MAGA concern. But as Tip O'Neill long ago said, "All politics is local." Just as Sen. Susan Collins, running for reelection in the liberal state of Maine, doesn't have the same MAGA principles that, say, Eric Schmitt has as a senator from Missouri, it's not surprising if a Republican who represents a district in Miami-Dade County is not an immigration hawk. And Salazar herself is a child of Cuban immigrants who fled the Castro regime. There's more than local or personal interest behind the Dignidad scheme, however. The National Association of Manufacturers supports Salazar's bill, as do a bevy of other business groups — corporate America still hungers for cheap labor at the expense of the rule of law. Salazar and her allies insist the bill isn't an amnesty simply because it doesn't grant blanket reprieve to absolutely everyone who is here illegally. But no less an immigration enthusiast than the libertarian law professor Ilya Somin of George Mason University acknowledged to PolitiFact, "The Dignity Act would create 'mass amnesty' in the sense that it gives legal status to large numbers of people, potentially millions, who would otherwise be eligible for deportation." That's the sense of the word that matters to Republican voters. As for Republican officeholders who don't consider legalizing millions of illegal immigrants to be amnesty, what they gain in corporate contributions threatens to be more than offset by the credibility they lose with their base. To make sure of that, the immigration-restriction activist Ryan Girdusky this month launched a political action committee, the Homeland PAC, aimed at "ending the career of every Republican who supports amnesty and sells out the American people on immigration," specifically targeting the Dignidad Act's co-sponsors. For the GOP, this bill means death with indignity at the polls. Salazar and company should think again — now is no time for Republicans to run from the issue that more than any other, save perhaps inflation, put President Trump in office. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.