Immigration and the Far Left (Right?)

We've commented before about the seemingly strange (and growing) alliance between elements of the far right and far left. Since the start of the Iraq war, these odd bedfellows have made common cause to disparage President Bush and the "neoconservative cabal" that is ostensibly running the country for the benefit of Israel. Now, it seems, they're teaming up to defeat the administration's immigration reform proposal.

Today the WSJ editorializes that some anti-immigrant Republicans are calling in representatives from anti-growth, anti-free market, and pro-eugenics groups as expert witnesses during Congressional debates on the Bush proposal. These same groups spend much of their budgets targeting pro-immigration Republicans for defeat in this fall's elections.

The Journal points out both today and in a March piece by Jason Riley that the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Numbers-USA, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Numbers USA, and Project-USA, among others, that some Republicans have become "disturbingly comfy with, were founded or funded (or both) by John Tanton, a retired doctor in Michigan. In addition to trying to stop immigration to the U.S., appropriate population-control measures for Dr. Tanton and his network include promoting China's one-child policy, sterilizing Third World women and wider use of RU-486." Riley wrote in March that that "By Dr. Tanton's own reckoning, FAIR has received more than $1.5 million from the Pioneer Fund, a white-supremacist outfit devoted to racial purity through eugenics."

Another key paragraph in today's editorial tells an astounding story: "Representative John Hostettler of Indiana, one of the most pro-life Republicans in Washington, chairs the immigration subcommittee that featured representatives of CIS and NumbersUSA as the Republican witnesses. The third GOP witness at the hearing, if you can believe it, was Frank Morris, who at the time was running for a seat on the Sierra Club board and actively campaigning for the defeat of President Bush. Apparently, unless you're a certified Malthusian, dedicated restrictionist or someone who knows next to nothing about economics, the Republican Congress isn't interested in what you have to say about immigration reform."

For Republicans to debate immigration reform among themselves is not only expected, but a sign of intellectual vitality and honesty within party ranks. But those ranks are violated when members enlist the services of far-left ideologues in efforts to defeat their own colleagues with differing views on immigration. At least in the future more people will know just who the "expert witnesses" being called in by some Republicans really are.