President Bush was back in Yuma, Arizona, in early April, one year after making promises to secure the border in exchange for a “comprehensive” immigration-reform bill that would increase legal immigration, open the door for up to 20 million illegal aliens to remain in the United States, and encourage yet another surge of illegal aliens to enter the United States and wait for the next amnesty.  As CNN’s Lou Dobbs put it, “He’s at it again.”  Officially, the Decider was  in Yuma, at ground zero of the illegal-immigration invasion, to open a new Border Patrol station.  The real aim, however, was to revive the game the Reagan administration and Congress played back in 1986, when an amnesty for illegal aliens was supposed to be accompanied by strict immigration-law enforcement and sanctions against employers hiring illegals.  We all know how that ended.

The President’s scriptwriters made sure he was on message at all times in Yuma, beating the drum for a “guest-worker” program that, Mr. Bush assured us, was not an amnesty.  The “guest-worker” program would allegedly be accompanied by employer sanctions, a “tamper-proof” work visa for alien workers, and stricter border enforcement.  The White House (as VDare.com’s Marcus Epstein suggested) may even have deliberately leaked a PowerPoint presentation—proposals on a new version of that “comprehensive” bill Mr. Bush pines for—in an effort to con the Republican “base” into thinking that, this time, the administration is actually serious about securing the border and protecting America.

The PowerPoint leak reportedly included some decent provisions, such as abolishing ridiculous lotteries for U.S. visas.  And it proposed charging the “guests” fees of up to $3,500 (for a three-year Z visa) and imposing a $10,000 fine (for illegal “guests”) for a permanent visa.  These provisions sparked protests by some good-hearted, hard-working guests who do not think they owe the United States anything, including respect, but that may have been calculated as well: As Mr. Epstein pointed out, we will likely hear more about the proposal’s alleged harshness—a prelude to seeing any restrained but sensible provisions yanked from the final bill.  In any case, Mr. Bush said nothing about them, which prompted Treason Lobby mouthpiece Tamara Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute to chirp that the President “didn’t side” with “one proposal or another,” and that he didn’t mention fines, “which is good.”

All things considered, President Bush’s trip to Yuma was nothing short of comedic—if, that is, one has a weakness for what was called “black comedy” in less sensitive times.  Mr. Bush repeated the mantra that there are some jobs that Americans won’t do—which was proved false when Americans lined up to take some of those jobs (at a New Bedford, Massachusetts, leather factory and at Swift meatpacking plants, for instance).  But the real howler was when Mr. Bush, promising more Border Patrol agents, called on Americans to seek a career in border enforcement—an absurd proposal, considering the prosecution and railroading of Border Patrol agents Compean and Ramos. (See my “No Country for Honorable Men: The Prosecution of the ‘Border Patrol Two’” in the May issue of Chronicles.)  Moreover, Chronicles readers are well aware of the massive influx of aliens under the Bush administration, including an undetermined number of “special-interest aliens”—aliens from countries that even the CIA considers to be spawning beds for Islamic terrorism.

Beltway pundits are indicating that, no matter what, a “comprehensive” immigration bill is not likely to be passed under President Bush—and that may be the best thing patriots can hope for.  The Bush administration is lobbying hard, with the President personally meeting with lawmakers and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez leading the talks with members of both parties.  Theoretically, the Evil Party is even more treasonous then its Stupid counterpart.  But, as Gail Russell Chaddock wrote in the April 11 issue of the Christian Science Monitor, Democrats may control both houses of Congress, but that is mainly thanks to “wins by conservative freshmen” congressmen, “many of whom ran campaigns opposed to amnesty” for illegal aliens.  According to the Washington Post, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told the President that she needs at least 70 Republican votes before she will consider bringing the matter up for a vote in the House—and that she will not enforce party discipline on the issue.  It could be that the Democratic leadership doesn’t want to help Mr. Bush, with the end of his disastrous presidency in sight.  One can only hope.