Controlled Immigration, Not Xenophobia

With Tuesday's primary victory by GOP Representative Chris Cannon of Utah's 3rd Congressional District, anti-immigration candidate Matt Throckmorton and the race-baiting, pro-eugenics groups that flooded his campaign with cash lost out to the good will and common sense of Utahns -- 58 to 42 percent. As I wrote last week, several extremist groups backed Throckmorton's campaign to unseat Cannon. The Salt Lake Tribune says Throckmorton's backers, aided by $100,000 in out-of-state funds, did their best to smear Cannon by alleging that he solicited contributions and votes from illegal immigrants. As the Tribune editorialists put it, "While the guards, dogs and barbed wire crowd says it seeks immigration 'reform,' it is Cannon's proposals that deserve to be called that. He would, with the Bush administration, allow legal ways for foreign workers to be matched up with employers and to, in limited cases, earn the right to move down the road to citizenship."

The Tribune's rival, the LDS-owned Deseret News, takes a similar approach -- itself a sign of just how poorly xenophobia played in Utah: "Federal officials oversaw the elections after reports that immigration reformist groups would challenge some voters in the belief that Cannon campaign workers had encouraged illegal immigrants to register to vote."

All of this is put into perspective by Tamar Jacoby in today's Wall Street Journal ($), who argues that Rep. Cannon's victory demonstrates that fear-mongering and race-baiting plays poorly among Americans whose legitimate concerns over immigration are best addressed by promising realistic control of the border, opportunity for immigrants, and a compassionate, orderly approach to the problems caused by large numbers of illegal workers.

I would add that the Utah election also demonstrates the ineffectiveness of outside extremist groups' efforts to sway voters on key issues. The people of Utah, like most Americans, resent such interference in local politics, especially when the ideas espoused are overtly extremist in nature. Outside groups can prove helpful on matters where extant local concerns mesh with the groups' agendas, but manufacturing crises using radical ideologies seldom works.