The GOP's Immigration Head-Fake

Ross notes:

Americans want border security and they want a lower immigration rate; what they don’t want is to feel like they’re being asked to vote for “Operation Wetback, Part II.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there are any Republican politicians who actually believe in the moderate-restrictionist position. Instead, there are politicians who make restrictionist promises they don’t intend to keep in the hopes of keeping the yahoo vote appeased, and politicians who sound like, well, yahoos themselves.

Larison, for his part, blames the moderates:

In theory the “enforcement-first” bloc, the second on this list, is the “moderate restrictionist” position, but as a matter of intra-party politics the pro-amnesty forces have pushed together enforcement-first and all other restrictionists and deliberately try to obscure the differences between all positions to their right.