Illegal immigration at heart of California's woes?
by Georgie Anne Geyer
signonsandiego.com
To the traditional American mind, there remains some question about what actually happened this fall in the Golden (some would say "Crazy") State.
A colorless and incompetent governor? Sure, but that's hardly unique to California. A huge deficit? Hey, our present administration has us into the $500 billions, almost all owed to the president's "enemies" across the world, and yet he has a humongous war chest behind him. Is there some undeclared bad mood in the country that fueled the California recall?
At an immigration reform conference last weekend in Alexandria, Va., one of the country's most respected pollster/analysts, Frank Luntz of The Luntz Research Companies, released data showing that the core issue of Californians' frustration, anger and rage at their government was illegal immigration. In short, they felt it corrupted everything it touched – and they were fed up.
"We found more anger, more fear of the future, more rage than I had seen since the Newt Gingrich campaign in 1994," Frank Luntz began. "People historically went to California to experience something very special. There was always more hope and more future there – except this year. They are so fed up with traffic congestion, and hospitals where they don't get care and everyone coming across the border, that the anger was so great they were actually punching the voting machines.
"There is a rejection of the status quo that may move eastward; it is a rejection of politics and of principles that have failed and that have fundamentally destroyed the state – and immigration is at the top of it all. The public in California has decided it's gone too far, and they want a change."
The Luntz team polled 600 voters in California on the Oct. 7 recall day and found that 71 percent said the state was seriously on the wrong track; that stopping illegal immigration (40 percent for stopping it) stood just behind crucial issues like the deficit, jobs and education; that 64 percent thought illegal immigration had had a very or somewhat negative impact on California (compared to equally positive responses to legal immigration); and that, by a ratio of 3-to-1, Californians strongly or somewhat oppose the former administration's law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses.
The Luntz group further found illegal immigration to be an extremely partisan issue: While 9 percent of Republicans felt illegal immigration had a positive impact and 72 percent of Republicans opposed benefits for illegals, 40 percent of Democrats felt it had a positive impact and only 36 percent of Democrats opposed such benefits.
The Luntz report summed up:
There is a solid belief that illegal immigration is at least partially responsible for California's fiscal problems.
A sharp partisan divide exists in California regarding immigration.
The issue of immigration played an important role in the recall election, both directly and through its impact on the economy.
But as an entire lineup of conference speakers confirmed similar findings from their parts of the country, all also pointed out the degree to which the nation's political leaders, both Republican and Democrat, are ignoring such sentiments and instead pandering to special interests and lobbies.
Luntz concluded the two-day meeting of the Federation of American Immigration Reform and Social Contract magazine with this: "Illegal immigration could be the defining issue in an election. It's not the declining infrastructure that's the major threat; it's the word 'illegal.' Americans don't like the government turning a blind eye, and now there's not the old fear of speaking out. The idea expressed by many is, 'If we can't track where they are in this country, then they should get the hell out.' "
As more and more illegals crowd the nation, probably an estimated 9 million today, the complaints from citizens become personal, particularly since so many immigrants do not even attempt to live by American norms and standards. Americans resent the fact that 18 states now give driver's licenses to illegals; and since 47 states permit voting registration through driver's license, illegals can easily vote – it's illegal, but the politicians surely don't care.
More and more, too, Americans living in high-density illegal immigrant territory complain bitterly about hit-and-run drivers among the illegals. California's rate of hit-and-run fatalities is twice the national rate, largely due to drunken driving by unlicensed illegals.
Still, what I noted at this year's conference was not only the difference in the Luntz polling conclusions from California, but a new urgency among immigration control groups and individuals.
As military philosopher Victor Hanson Davis, author of the recent book "Mexifornia," told the group: "We are in the 11th hour in California."
Or: "I believe with all my heart that massive illegal immigration into our country is a dagger pointed at our heart," Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado said to the group. "It will determine whether we are to be a country – or not." |
