Immigration is a distraction from outsourcing

Lost your job? Republicans want you to blame immigrants, not corporations (Digby):

I'm sure that with all the legislation, hysterical coverage and massive protests that [immigration] has become "number one" to more people lately, but I will be very surprised if it comes even close to being the number one issue any time soon. This country has a lot of problems.

[Chris] Matthews could have illuminated this debate if he had noted that according to the latest Democracy Corps poll, the single most important foreign policy issue is globalization and outsourcing. It's more important than terrorism and Iraq. I found that surprising. It explains why there is so much anxiety over immigration right now. The threat of cheap foreign labor is very real to people, they feel powerless to stop it, and the most immediate face of it is low-wage Latino migration to the US.

The forces shaping this are massive and it cannot be finessed by crude nativist rhetoric no matter how much people want to run populist campaigns and are tempted to pull out that well-worn playbook. The sharp feelings about immigration right now are a symptom of something much bigger and dislocating than Latino day laborers — and it seems that on some level, the public knows it. It's possible that politicians can cynically divert voters' angst over globalization by stoking anti-immigrant fervor, but it appears to me that it would be a short-term solution at best. Deporting every illegal immigrant and putting up a 25-foot wall won't solve this problem. Globalization will continue apace, people will still want to buy massive quantities of cheap disposable stuff and working people are going to be squeezed.

Republicans know they can work a certain percentage of the population into a frenzy over immigration, just like they did in 2003–2004 about gay marriage.