John McCain and the Undocumented Express

Reporter: “Senator McCain, there’s close to 14 million estimated undocumented workers in this country. I know you’re not for amnesty but what do you plan to do for those undocumented workers?”

John McCain: “First of all we have to secure our borders. Our borders must be secured, that is our first obligation. Americans have lost confidence in our government, and trust. So we have to secure the borders.”

That exchange occurred at a Miami news conference January 21, a week before the Florida primary. McCain also said it was imperative to fully prosecute employers of undocumented immigrants, and to deport the 2 million illegals who’ve committed crimes. “But first we’ve got to secure the borders, and that’s the message.”

It was a far cry from the compassionate, immigrant-friendly chords he struck less than a year earlier. Nonetheless, on the night of McCain’s January 29 Florida primary win, when the senator from Arizona clinched the Republican nomination, Jose Lagos was ebullient. It didn’t bother Lagos, the president of the immigrant advocacy group Honduran Unity, that the Straight Talk Express wasn’t talking about helping undocumented immigrants obtain legal status anymore. “Right now what people want to hear is ‘border security,” Lagos said. “You can’t say everything that everybody wants to hear and get elected.”

Lagos was certain, though, that McCain still supported pro-immigrant reforms, like mass legalization and the opportunity of citizenship for millions of undocumented residents. The candidate just stopped saying so publicly. “Sen. McCain is like the Phoenix bird,” Lagos said excitedly, proclaiming that the Republican Party was now poised to keep immigration reform alive.

It was plausible—as long as McCain returned to his former self. In May 2006, 21 Republicans joined 41 Democrats in the U.S. Senate to pass the comprehensive immigration reform McCain authored with Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. The bill aimed to bolster border control and enforcement against companies that hire undocumented immigrants. It also would have established a process for the estimated 12 to 14 million undocumented workers already here to become citizens. The legislation died, however, when Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the GOP majority leader at the time, refused to take up the bill in the House.

Democrats gained control of Congress in the 2006 elections but by June 2007, with presidential primary campaigning in motion and xenophobia swirling in some states, legalization proponents could no longer rally a majority of the senate behind the McCain-Kennedy bill. Attempts at compromise failed. In the last vote on the matter only 46 senators (12 Republicans and 34 Democrats) supported comprehensive immigration reform; 53 (40 Republicans and 13 Democrats) opposed it. Mitt Romney and other GOP presidential contenders seized the moment to criticize McCain as being too soft on illegal immigration.

In July of 2007, while the McCain campaign was reeling from financial mismanagement, most of his GOP opponents continued to send out anti-immigrant messages, alienating large numbers prospective Hispanic voters. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, for example, denounced legislation that allowed immigrants to receive Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program services without having to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. “Again, the Democrats have proven their loyalty to illegal aliens over American citizens,” Tancredo asserted in a press release. “Rather than help middle class families as they promised, Congressional Democrats are squeezing tax dollars out of Americans in order to benefit those who have violated our laws.... This socialistic plan only encourages more illegal immigration.

When will these out-of-touch Democrats realize that Americans do not want to subsidize illegal aliens?” When McCain re-emerged in the fall of 2007, he, too, had forsaken the more humanitarian reforms of his own bill. Arguably, his new secure-the-border-and-deport criminal-aliens stance helped him win the GOP nomination.

A general election campaign is a different ball game, however, especially when opinion polls indicate that two out of three Latino voters prefer your opponent—and your opponent’s immigrant-friendly positions, which used to be your own. Because record numbers of Latinos voted in this year’s presidential primaries and more have registered since then, they could hold the key to victory in certain battleground states like Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida. So there was plenty of incentive for McCain to rediscover his kinder, gentler side on immigration.

But first, the Republican Party’s 109-member platform committee—which hammers out official GOP policies to be adopted at its convention—had to work through proposals to make life even harsher for illegal immigrants. One called for the party to oppose automatic U.S. citizenship for children born of “illegal aliens.” (Under the Constitution, anyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen.)

“That proposal was voted down and I was encouraged by the debate, by those that recognized that certainly to target or identify children in the immigration debate was inappropriate,” says Marcelo Llorente, a Florida state legislator from the Miami area who was a McCain delegate.

“And on top of that there are 14th Amendment protections to all persons born on this great land.”

The committee also quashed a motion to exclude undocumented immigrants from the U.S. Census count. Opponents argued that because government funding for education, health care, and other social services is apportioned on the basis of population, it would hurt states and municipalities to have inaccurate counts.

In its final form, the Republican platform emphasizes “enforcing the rule of law at the border” and throughout the nation. “We oppose amnesty,” it states. “The rule of law suffers if government policies encourage or reward illegal activity. The American people’s rejection of en masse legalizations is especially appropriate given the federal government’s past failures to enforce the law.” It also states that authorities should also arrest “those who overstay their visas, rather than letting millions flout the generosity that gave them temporary entry.”

The Democratic Party platform is equally vociferous on immigration law enforcement, but more lenient with regard to the undocumented. “For the millions living here illegally but otherwise playing by the rules, we must require them to come out of the shadows and get right with the law,” it says. “We support a system that requires undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens. They are our neighbors, and we can help them become full tax paying, law-abiding, productive members of society.”

“He’s got to make a calculation, really, between now and the election about what it’ll take to win,” Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said as he headed to hear McCain’s speech at the Republican National Convention. “His original bill, McCain-Kennedy, had a comprehensive plan, which was very appealing to Hispanics,” Specter continued. “And there is very strong Republican concern about anything beyond border security. So that’s his challenge.”

In his speech, McCain’s only reference to immigration was this: “We believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential, from the boy whose descendants arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers. We’re all God’s children and we’re all Americans.” But it was clear his immigration recalculation had begun. It became more discernible when Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos forced the issue in an interview three days later.

“I’ll enact comprehensive immigration reform. We’ll sit down together with Democrats, and we’ll get it done,” McCain told Ramos. “But we’ve got to secure our borders, not only because of illegal immigration, but because of drugs.”

“Would that include massive legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants in this country?” Ramos asked.

“I think it means that we go through a step-by-step process of allowing people to apply and achieve citizenship in this country, of course,” McCain replied. When Ramos pointed out McCain had just contradicted his own party’s platform, the candidate pressed on, saying authorities need to deport or jail 2 million criminal aliens, then joked that there aren’t enough handcuffs in the country for the other 12 million undocumented. “We can, together, Republican and Democrat, work out this issue, provide a path to citizenship.”