Anyone interested in different strategies for addressing the immigration issue, from a Democratic view point, should read
this article from the Democratic Strategist.
The article is most compelling - regardless of your political persuasion - for its historical analysis, and I really can't do it justice by paraphrasing. Seriously, anyone who likes historical discussions should check this out.
But I will quote the least interesting part of the article, simply because it is relatively short. The article concludes by recommending the following "talking points" (and I actually disagree with this part of the article, but here it is anyway):
"Let’s get specific. Here’s what the Dems can say:
We believe the border must be secured, immigrants must follow the rules and obey the law and people who come to this country to live must be willing to accept our values and assimilate into our way of life.
But there are two places where Democrats break with the Republicans:
First, we will not support proposals that will separate children from their parents. This is just plain immoral. A fair immigration system must not only control the borders, it must be enforced in a way that is fair, humane and in accord with American values and the American way.
Second, we’re going to put the blame for the problem where it belongs. The people coming here to work didn’t want to leave their homes, their parents and relatives and the communities where they grew up. They are economic refugees from an economic Hurricane Katrina unleashed in Mexico and other Latin countries by the extremist free market polices that have been championed by the Republicans ever since the 1980’s.
The same Republican economists who don’t want all Americans to have health insurance and won’t protect American workers from outsourcing, downsizing and unfair trade are also the ones who helped make a mess of Mexico’s economy in the 80s and 90s and left these people with no alternative except to leave their homes to seek a better life. We have to fix the immigration mess, but the right place to start is by recognizing who made the mess in the first place.
These talking points are intentionally limited to achieving two goals: to focus the debate on real-life children and families rather then faceless abstractions and to directly link immigration to the Republicans broader failures in defending the economic interests of ordinary Americans. To the extent that the debate can be fought on this terrain, the Democrats will hold a significant advantage.
Beyond this, of course, there are the broader challenges of devising effective long-term programs and policies that can win majority support. The D-Corps memo actually contains quite useful polling data on the ways in which support for relatively balanced proposals vary depending on which particular elements are included. Equally, a variety of proposals have been offered for more flexible, cross-border labor market reforms that would significantly reduce and regularize the flow of immigrant workers (see, for example, Princeton sociologist Alejandro Portes’ proposal in the October 2007 issue of The American Prospect).
But the most pressing and immediate challenge facing the Democrats is to drive a wedge between the racist and non-racist elements of the coalition the Republicans are trying to create and to link immigration with the Republican Party’s failure to defend the economic interests of ordinary Americans.. The Republican strategy ultimately depends on successfully blurring and obscuring these divisions and failures – not only from moderates and progressives, but from the middle-American “Reagan Democrats” in the coalition itself. A successful Democratic strategy, in contrast, will consist in successfully exposing the reality behind the façade.
The Democrats’ real choice is not simply between “moving to the right” and “sticking to principles”; it is between allowing the Republicans to set the terms of the debate or presenting an alternative narrative in which the Democrats are both decent and right on the issue of immigration and the Republicans are dishonest and wrong."