Bushigration Gets Chain Links

Either the Bush Administration is beginning to see the light on illegal immigration, or they're attempting to pre-emptively, er, "mend fences" with the base before pushing for the President's amnesty scheme.

Either way, this story is a welcome development.

In a move that could undermine his plan to extend limited amnesty to illegal immigrants, President Bush is quietly backing the completion of a security fence along the California-Mexico border.

The border fence provision is part of the REAL ID ACT of 2005, which is attached to the House's emergency supplemental appropriations package to finance military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The measure would speed up completion of a 3.5-mile gap in the fence between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, according to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times.

In a letter to Congress last week, the White House said, "The Administration strongly urges [congressional] conferees to include the REAL ID Act of 2005 in the final version of the bill." The legislation also includes a ban on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.

If that last item sounds familiar, it should, since that's the same measure sought unsuccessfully by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) in last fall's intelligence reform bill. After the illegals drivers licence ban was stripped out of the final intel bill, Sensenbrenner was promised that it could be brought back in separately. This would appear to be the form in which it has been resurrected, as well as the only way that any amnesty legislation stands a chance in sheol of escaping his vociferous opposition.

One thing you have to like is the sly way RIDA'05 has been configured to be insulated from Democrat obstructionism. Don't believe me? Listen to opposition whining:

Democrats are bristling over the Bush endorsement, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid saying he was "disappointed."

"The fact of the matter is Republicans did this in a very tricky way," Reid Spokeswoman Fabiola Rodriguez-Ciampoli told the Associated Press. "They knew that if they included REAL ID in the [military spending bill], it would be very hard to strike it out."

In other words, Republicans "did this" the way Democrats used to when they were in the majority. Which means that 'Pubbies may finally be getting the hang of running things on Capitol Hill. On the House side, anyway.

In place of the existing twelve-year-old fence, which is frankly crumbling along its entire fourteen-mile length, RIDA'05 would enhance this portion of the border considerably:

The completed project would feature an impenetrable security zone framed by two access roads, three [fourteen foot high] fences, bright lights and high-tech surveillance devices.

Much has been written in recent months about how the party that finally takes seriously the illegal immigration issue that both parties have ignored for decades will gain a huge leg up nationally. All the more so in the post-9/11 era where border security is not just a matter of domestic policy and law enforcement but national security as well.

I doubt that the White House is coming to its senses in any comprehensive sense, but RIDA'05 is definitely a welcome step in the right direction.

Until it reaches the Senate, of course, where it will be stripped back out and bipartisanly bludgeoned to death. But that's another post.