Dream Act. Claire McCaskill

Speaking of the defeat (once again) of the Dream Act in the Senate, we have to note our deep disappointment in Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill. We met in my office with her staff a few weeks ago and they promised to push for support of the Dream Act, but confessed that they did not know what her position was going to be. Turns out, she was one of only about 6 democrats that voted against it (it was actually a cloture vote, but served to kill further consideration of the bill). This was particularly disappointing in light of the fact that many of us strongly supported Sen. McCaskill in her race to unseat Sen. Jim Talent. We figured that no one could be as bad on immigration issues as Jim Talent. But so far, Sen. McCaskill has not shown herself to be any improvement over Jim Talent.

Not only was this vote a deep disappointment, but her public statements on the issue of immigration have shown her to be out of touch with the real issues and only too willing to pander to loud nativist voices in her district. She apparently believes that the problem of undocumented immigrants can be solved by cracking down on employers. She doesn't support any kind of guest worker program. http://www.claireonline.com/issues/immigration.jsp While employers should not be allowed to knowingly flaunt federal law, what she and others will find is that most employers are complying with federal law, but still hiring undocumented workers. The employers will not face much in the way of prosecution but their businesses will be disrupted and the lives of undocumented immigrants will be made even more miserable by ignorant and random enforcement actions.

I expect this kind of position from people like Tom Tancredo and Jim Talent. I don't expect it from Claire McCaskill, especially when she isn't even running for re-election this next year.

For the first time in my memory, immigration is lining up to be a partisan issue in the next presidential election. That is, leading republicans are almost uniformly in support of an enforcement only approach, while leading democratic candidates are almost uniformly in support of some kind of comprehensive reform. If the next president is a democrat who is finally able to push for immigration reform, I hope Sen. McCaskill lines up with the party to do the right thing. If not, she won't have any future support from me.