The Immigration Problem

Victor Davis Hanson details the strange case of immigration and how the both the Left and the Right deal with it in less than principled ways:

Democrats, buoyed by the two election victories of Barack Obama, now welcome large pools of new Latino citizens to vote en bloc for Democratic candidates. But if the border were actually closed and immigration were once again handled through a legal, systematic process, then in time Latinos — in the pattern of Greek, Italian, and Armenian Americans — would follow most other ethnic minorities and decouple their ethnic allegiances from politics. 

Republicans seem more confused. After needlessly bombastic talk in the 2012 presidential primaries, they have gone to the other extreme of emphasizing amnesties instead of enforcement — largely in efforts to pander to growing numbers of Latino voters.
Here, too, paradoxes abound. Various polls suggest that immigration was not the primary reason why Latinos voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. 

When the Pew Research Center recently surveyed Latinos and asked whether they preferred high taxes and big government or low taxes and small government, they preferred high taxes and big government by a 75–19 margin. And they usually see liberal Democrats as far better stewards of redistributionist government, and Republicans more as heartless advocates of a capricious free market.

So the idea that many on the Right had after Romney was beat in 2012--that Marco Rubio has to be the nominee in order to get the Latino vote or that the amnesty of 12 million illegal is both a political boon to the country and to the Republican Party--is completely wrong.  If Republicans go along with amnesty and a path to citizenship, politically this will create more Democrats.  What now Sean Hannity?  (Sorry for using a Michael Savage link, it's the only one I could find.)

The problem of "comprehensive immigration reform":

Everyone talks grandly of passing bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform as if the present system had not sprung up to serve the needs of all sorts of special interests that certainly have not gone away.

We forget that too many employers still want the cheap labor of foreign nationals.
The Mexican government still promotes illegal immigration as a political safety valve and a valuable source of cash remittances. 

Too many ethnic activists, whose support derives from large numbers of under-assimilated Latinos, don’t want to deport anyone and do not welcome legal immigration redefined by ethnically blind, skill-based criteria. 

Democratic politicos don’t want closed borders, only to see the melting pot someday turn their loyal supporters into independent voters. And panicky Republicans simply have no idea what they want — other than to cater to as many constituencies as they can.
The present system of immigration is far too often illegal and immoral. But it is also weirdly rational in the way that it serves so well so many lobbies — and so poorly the shared public interest at large.

It's a strange case that looks to be handled just as badly in the future as it has been in the last thirty years.