O'Reilly vs. McCain on immigration
When John McCain launched his Spanish-language website earlier this week, I commented that immigration would be a tough issue for him during the general election (and possibly problematic for Democrats too).
Even Bill O'Reilly gave him a gentle jab when McCain appeared on his show yesterday. Here's an excerpt of the interview from Fox:
O'REILLY: I know. All right, the issue that's hurt you the most among conservatives is the immigration issue. You know that? In fact, you and I had a nice chat in May of 2001. I don't know if you remember that.
MCCAIN: I tried to forget it.
(A quick summary for Opinion L.A. readers who have forgotten: O'Reilly said he wanted troops on the border; McCain said he didn't. Repeat several times, with McCain getting fewer and fewer words in and O'Reilly getting louder and mentioning the Mexican government's handing out "fanny packs" to border-crossers.)
O'Reilly moves to the current immigration controversy of choice -- so-called sanctuary cities:
O'REILLY: OK. I hammered you. I hammered you. I told you you've got to crack down on the border. Your own state is getting overrun. I was right. Will you concede that?
MCCAIN: I will concede that the American people want the border secured first.
O'REILLY: OK, but Arizona, your home state, has been punished by rampant illegal immigration, economically, socially. In Maricopa County now, they're cracking down, probably too much, but the people are furious.
Now my question is this. It's a simple question. I asked this to Hillary Clinton as well. Sanctuary cities — San Francisco, Los Angeles, and on and on. Phoenix, no longer. The mayor changed — are harboring criminal illegal aliens, you know? There was an 18-year-old high school football star, whose mother is serving in Iraq as a sergeant, murdered by a criminal illegal alien with a long rap sheet. Let out of the L.A. County jail. ICE was never informed. The next president, senator, has to crack down on the sanctuary cities. Will you?
(O'Reilly misrepresents the situation -- here's the editorial board's explanation.)
MCCAIN: Obviously, I don't approve or would oppose sanctuary cities, but again, it's a larger problem. And that is our failure to carry out a federal responsibility to enact immigration reform. That means securing our borders first, a temporary-worker program, which we need. It is associated with tamperproof biometric documents. Anyone who doesn't have that is prosecuted.
O'REILLY: Can't work.
MCCAIN: It works.
O'REILLY: OK.
MCCAIN: And third of all, to address the issue of the 12 million people.
O'REILLY: Health insurance, and again, it is — here's the folks. They're going, I can't afford to go to the doctor.
O'Reilly went easy. His conciliatory "OK," and the quick switch to health insurance (and mocking Barack Obama's healthcare plan), is more evidence that conservatives don't want to touch immigration when it comes to their canddiate.
McCain, nonetheless, does a decent job standing his ground on a guest worker program, considering that appearing easy on illegal immigrants won't endear him to conservatives (especially when he does it on TV with O'Reilly, rather than at a Texas border town hall).
And despite McCain's moving closer to his former stance, he's still not as liberal as Obama on the point: the Democratic candidate supports drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. Hillary Clinton stopped short of that, too.


Proof that God does not love America : Obama, Clinton and McCain. All three are happy to see America over run by illegal immigrants. All three want them to have health care and work permits and drivers licenses.
America is doomed.
Posted by: wgberger | May 09, 2008 at 07:45 PM
america, will not hear a peep out of english canada because it suffers the same fate as arizona. overun and overwhelmed,guard your northern border.
Posted by: bill bishop | May 10, 2008 at 03:09 AM
Notice McCain says it is a failure to carry out a federal responsibility to enact immigration reform.
Strictly speaking, that is the entire problem: Congress and the Court taking a responsibility upon themselves that was never delegated to them to be responsible for. One of the justifications for independence from England was for the States to have control over immigration concerns of eash State. This was never surrendered to the federal government.
What opened the entire can of beans in regards to federal meddling into immigration was the Supreme Court striking down State laws that prevented unwanted immigrants from landing via steamship companies (today we would call these steamship passenger operations "smugglers") under the commerce clause.
What was interesting about this the court essentially considered people as items of foreign commerce. The result would later result in fictional theories of federal powers over immigration to the derailment of the States.
Posted by: Batman | May 10, 2008 at 05:28 AM
The LAT editorial board continues to prove
day in and day out that it is controlled by
the Open Borders,La Raza,Mexico 1st and
the Anchor Baby Fifth Column city council!
The 35% of the city that are still legal
citizens are sickened that Once Great Los Angeles has turned into a Third World
grafitti covered cesspool where anyone
can be murdered ,driving their car on
the freeway or standing on their own
street because of the color of their skin!
numbersusa
grassfire
americanpatrol
alipac
saveourstate
youdontspeakforme
Posted by: M.A.Andrews | May 10, 2008 at 07:49 AM
Just goes to show that everyone in America IS NOT a racist, xenophobic bigot. those three are where they are with the position and ideals that they hold because the majority of Americans want imigrantion reform. Their voices are in their votes, unlike people like the non-silent minority. they bark and bark, but in the end its a waste of time and effort. Immigration reform will happen. it will happen soon, and all of these ignorant racists will just have to SHUT UP AND DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!
Posted by: NCGRRRL | May 10, 2008 at 08:13 AM
I am so sick and tired of seeing Illegal Aliens cross our borders,then we support them with free mediacl care and subsidies.WAKE UP America.Hillary and Obama don,t care.Our medical cost has risen just becuse of this an lazy low-income Americans won,t work hard to afford good health care.Nut shell we don,t need bleeding heart liberals,We need hard-nosed Politicans like from what made America great.Trumans,Eisenhowers etc..Ship the 12 millon baclk ro Mexico..shut the borders
Posted by: john campbell | May 10, 2008 at 11:16 AM
I don't know a single person who wants our borders secured "FIRST." We want our borders secured period, and we want our immigration laws enforced. Who are these people running for president anyway??? Why don't we matter to them more than the chambers of commerce and special interest groups? Once one of these bozos becomes president and offers amnesty to 20 million+ people, anyone want to guess how many illegals will cross the border in the next 10 years? Unbelievable.
Posted by: franks | May 10, 2008 at 08:13 PM
Unfortunately, individual & institutional greed is in control of the American borders; that won't be changing in our life times. We love paying the lowest wadges & salaries for jobs; Mexican's are not completely stupid, they count on that.
The Mexican's arriving are poor and uneducated and America's only hope would be the newly arriving individuals take advantage of our instiutions by educating their children. It simply doesn't appear that's happening to a large extent.
If this continues without change, I feel within twenty years, the American southwest economy will be similar to a third world economy.
Posted by: Jim | May 11, 2008 at 08:56 AM
It is my opinion that every American patriot should ask their local newspaper, what their platform is regarding the illegal immigration epidemic? Each media outlet should be evaluated if they continually publish that everybody who enters America illegally is an 'Immigrant."
This will simply identify the pro-illegal immigration advocates in every newspaper, throughout this nation. Then citizens and legal residents can justify canceling their subscription if they choose.
Then many newspapers address their decision, stating that enforcement of illegal immigrants must be operated on a Federal level?
This is quite untrue:
Our Country’s Constitution, states are bound under the Supremacy Clause to enforce federal immigration laws. The statutory law of the United States is part of state law just as if it were written into state statute. This is why I am so disappointed that many of our cities and police administrators have made the political decision to not enforce the law. There is no legal barrier hindering local police from inquiring about a person’s immigration status and then acting upon the information they gather. This was codified in a 2005, 9 – 0 landmark decision, by the U.S. Supreme Court in Muehler vs. Mena.
However I do agree with the the majority of newspapers and national media, that Federal enforcement is a must..?
The Federal SAVE ACT (4088) will enforce the law, without AMNESTY. That is what parasite employers want. To take away your jobs and replace them with cheap labor: no questions asked.
Posted by: Brittanicus | May 11, 2008 at 10:28 AM
What has been overlooked is that America DOES HAVE AN IMMIGRATION policy and within that immigration policy no more than 6% of any one ethnic group is to be admitted on an annual basis. If our goverment waves its magic wand and allows 12-21 million (no one really knows the true numbers and 12 million is likely a very low number) illegals to remian in this country, then they AGAIN have failed to enforce yet another aspect of our immigration laws that affects everyone. America is entitled to a balance of ethnic group prepresentation from those coming into this country. America does not want to be unbalance with any one particular ethic group immigration representation. It's the law. Why doesn't our goverment recognize that it's the law - enforce it. Everywhere I go, everywhere I shop, Spanish, Spanish, Spanish. This is NOT MEXICO, it's America and those who are entitled to come here legally have a process to go through to become Americans. If we just open our borders for all to flow in without any processing of becoming an American, then we are just a jumping off location, not a country. People want this stopped and they want it stopped now.
Posted by: Maggie Goddard | May 11, 2008 at 01:06 PM
Well, you guys are so ignorant that give your people a bad name, anyway 12 millions undocumented workers represent only 3% of the American population it is mathematical imposible that 3% will be responsable for the over price American health system,they are using immigrant as scapegoat to the healt care problem, and everytime you misrepresent a sample of an undocumeted criminal you fail to point out the millions of good working people that keep you agriculture, construcion, service industry working and the fact that 70 million baby boomer will need to be repalce in the next 15 years, by immigrants and most likely millions of those baby boomers will end up living in Mexico there golden years.....you guys have NO SHAME
Posted by: Jose | May 11, 2008 at 09:53 PM
Its not about racism, simply pragmatism. Solving a problem in the most direct way.
Overpopulation, congestion, urban sprawl, crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded schools and emergency rooms, crime, pollution, diminishing resources, lack of affordable housing, disease, depressed wages, increased tax burdens, the balkanization of our communities, the overall decline in quality of life, are all the result of unconstrained immigration. Too many people competing for limited resources has never been considered sound economic, environmental, social or cultural policy!
Virtually every industrialized nation, even China and Mexico, has taken steps to end illegal immigration, and too curtail legal immigration to only that which is prudent, demonstrably necessary, and above all else, in the proven best interests of their native population! Its dangerously misguided to suggest that the United States should not do likewise.
There is not problem confronting America's Citizens that would not be measurably improved by securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws. Our government has the responsibility (State, Federal and local) to act in the best interests of America's Citizens, first and foremost! Solving our immigration problem isn't racist, its pragmatic!
Posted by: Ed Weirdness | May 12, 2008 at 10:00 AM
I can see indications of racism in the debate over what to do with illegal immigration. It is evident in the stance taken by all three presidential candidates. There is a reason these politicians want to make exceptions to our laws and it reflects a view of Mexico as a third world country. They obviously think people should be allowed to escape the squaller that they see existing to our south. They could not think the Mexican people capable of saving themselves and they obviously believe the United States needs to come to the rescue. How could one degrade a people more than to say, "we will change our laws because you cannot take care of your own?"
I think all three presidential candidates are driven by good intentions. But their good intentions are misguided because they think too little of the Mexican people.
Posted by: Chuck | May 14, 2008 at 10:21 PM