Distant Thunder

Hear that, Tony Yapias? That's the sound of a backlash approaching.

Some in the blogosphere have cynically suggested that this is nothing more that Bush Admin PR in order to give supporters of the amnesty plan in the Senate political cover to pass the bill. I agree that it was done for political reasons, just not the ones MM is talking about.

I would argue that the White House has finally woken up and realized that if they don't do anything substantial about immigration, they'll be facing a Democrat-controlled Congress next January. Since to cave in on amnesty now would make them appear weak, and since neither the House plan nor the Senate has enough votes to make it through Congress, it looks as if immigration reform is dead for this year. So the Bush Administration is left with only one viable option: A high-profile crackdown.

Indeed, the more paranoid among us would say that this as another Brilliant Rovian Strategy: By making himself appear moderate but allowing the Democrats to kill the bill and thus cement the public perception that they are pro-illegal immigrant, the president now has political cover to order a crackdown that he hopes will satisfy many dissenters in his party while making the Democrats look weak on national security.

Nah. To paraphrase the saying, never ascribe to brilliance what can be attributed to incompetence.

As for the illegals themselves, it is interesting to see how quickly the "Si, se puede" hubris fades away in the face of only mild enforcement of immigration laws. Now we read the community is "nervous" after only 13 of Utah's estimated 90,000 illegals are detained in Tooele. We also read that the immigration community is trying to distance itself from the far-Left Reconquista kooks that are the driving force behind the upcoming May 1st strike. And now we read that they especially want those bratty teenagers with their Mexican flags to stay in school this time. Good idea. Right now, nothing would make Utahns madder than seeing a bunch of gansta-dressed teenagers waving Mexican flags and chanting nonsense about "Neustra Tierra" in Spanish while they tie up traffic downtown.

I predicted just a couple of weeks ago that there was going to be a crackdown and that the only question was how severe it would be. Given the Administration's history, that is still an open quesiton.