For those who accept the “wisdom” from inside the Beltway, amnesty for the twelve million or more illegal aliens presently in our homeland is inevitable. In the U.S. Senate, both parties have seemed intent on a repeat of last year’s amnesty bill, while the White House, remaining stubbornly oblivious to the anger generated among its most loyal base, remains fixed on an agenda of placating the Mexican government and selling out the American people on this issue.

 

Yet despite incessant reporting of this supposed “done deal,” some very encouraging signs from the heartland attest to the fact that the debate is far from over.

 

Out on the campaign trail, ordinary citizens who recognize their country’s future as a far loftier goal than the acquisition of cheap labor (among Republicans) or cheap votes (the real motivation of the Democrats), are forcefully conveying to the slate of presidential hopefuls that they consider amnesty for illegals to be nothing less than a betrayal of the country.

 

In Iowa, a pivotal state in the upcoming presidential race, none other than Senator John McCain (R.-AZ) received such fierce backlash to his past open-borders advocacy that he has actually begun to retreat, at least in words, from his former stance. Other candidates, such as Senator Sam Brownback (R.-KS), have been subjected to every bit as intense and unwavering anger and resentment from the grassroots over the illegal immigration/amnesty controversy.

 

Clearly, this is not the time for real conservatives, real patriots, and real Americans to lose heart. If anything, the upcoming presidential campaign season could provide a respite from any consideration of amnesty. At most, it may delay this catastrophic wound against the nation’s sovereignty and integrity until that time when a president might take office who regards them as sufficiently important to fight to protect them.

 

Contrary to any sketchy or incomplete “polling data” suggesting otherwise, the American people are highly unified in their opposition to the massive current presence of illegal aliens in their midst. Neither do they embrace amnesty in any form, since it would only serve to embolden the invaders with a legitimized status, thus giving them even more clout in their encroachment on the American culture.

 

Furthermore, were the pollsters to more accurately present the issue as one of an unchecked and continued influx of illegals, the polling results would be more lopsided still. Ultimately, the real goal of the open borders crowd is to keep the invaders coming. Only by so doing can they assure a situation which maintains downward pressure on wages. In the process, America increasingly suffers the ravages of “multiculturalism” from a dispassionate and often hostile foreign subculture,

 

So in order to claim that the illegal invasion is just another one of those “divisive and polarizing” issues on which the American people hold no clear consensus, pollsters, pundits, and political insiders relentlessly characterize the mass incursion as being somehow beneficial to the American economy, proof of the virtues of the American “melting pot,” and the embodiment of “compassion and tolerance.” Yet, as the GOP hopefuls learned in Iowa, those at the grassroots have bought into none of this drivel.

 

Nor can McCain or any of the other Republican candidates expect to receive cover from the symbolic “border security” measures incorporated into last year’s bill. Having been sold out one-too-many times by their elected officials on this issue, Americans are not about to accept the “fig leaf” solution of granting amnesty once again (it has been tried before) even if accompanied by glowing promises of a subsequent border security crackdown.

 

In a pattern of Washington duplicity that should not surprise anyone, no real attempt was made to correct the underlying problems since “Simpson-Mazzoli,” the first amnesty charade, was passed in 1986. Thus, the only result of the measure has been a fivefold increase in the scale of the invasion.

 

Worse yet, the economic, social, and political forces that perpetrated the previous amnesty measure during the Reagan Administration have only become more pronounced, and more devoid of any moral or patriotic influence in the intervening decades since the previous “fix” was implemented.

 

Seeing their country reap the social and cultural and economic devastation that ensued, most Americans will flatly reject any compromise measures until after they are confident that the border has indeed been secured, and that those presently in the country are increasingly subject to the laws by which the rest of the nation must abide.

 

Contrary to the incessant contentions of the liberal punditry and Democrat mouthpieces up on Capitol Hill, last year’s elections were not a referendum on the Iraq War. Nor is the currently beleaguered state of the Bush Administration an indication that the nation has turned its back on conservatism.

 

Rather, both represent the vulnerability of the GOP as a result of its disillusioned conservative base. The Democrats’ fabricated “scandal of the day,” whether the supposed “failure in Iraq” or the vastly overblown Gonzales controversy, can only dominate in the void left from Republican abandonment of conservative principle. And no issue goes to the heart of conservative disenfranchisement, as does illegal immigration

 

It is incumbent on the conservative grassroots across America to continue voicing its sentiments in unambiguous terms. The events in Iowa, and throughout heartland America, represent a clear message, which GOP insiders had better recognize and heed. If they refuse to do so, and foolishly press forward with their amnesty plan, much worse awaits them on Election Day in 2008.