Analysis by Tom Barry*

SILVER CITY, New Mexico, Jul 31 2006 (IPS) — Leading conservatives recently sent an open letter to U.S. President George W. Bush and congressional leaders stating that “enforcement first” measures should be central to any immigration policy reform.

The signatories, including such right-wing luminaries as William Buckley, Phyllis Shlafly and William Bennett, called for the country’s political leaders to remember that “We are in the middle of a global war on terror.”

The conservative manifesto comes on the heels of another statement on immigration policy by pro-immigration conservatives published in the Wall Street Journal on Jul. 10. “The Conservative Statement for Immigration Reform,” signed by 33 prominent conservatives, calls for the creation of new legal channels for immigrants “drawn to the jobs created by our economy.”

That same day a Journal editorial titled “Conservatives and Immigration” reiterated the paper’s “longstanding position favoring open immigration.”

This summer, the immigration debate in the United States has heated up as conservatives of all tendencies – social conservatives, neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, free-market conservatives, national security conservatives, and Republican Party stalwarts -seek to frame the debate in their own terms.

In part, it’s a battle over contending right-wing ideologies. It’s also a high-stakes race to determine which approach to the immigration crisis will win the most votes for Republicans.

Before the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, immigration restrictionists were marginalised in Congress and had little pull in the Republican Party. Immigration received little or no attention from the right’s battery of think tanks and policy institutes, except for single-issue institutes such as the Centre for Immigration Studies (CIS) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The breakdown this spring of bipartisan attempts to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill demonstrated the newfound political strength of immigration restrictionists. Although a comprehensive bill that included legalisation and guest-worker provisions did pass the Senate, it was blocked in the House, where restrictionists, led by Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, have since Sep. 11 succeeded in gaining control of the immigration agenda.

Pro-immigration sentiment runs deep in the Senate, whose members have traditionally reflected the liberal immigration views of large corporations and the party leadership. But this time around, the increasing clout of the immigration restrictionists was quickly apparent as even the proponents of legalisation dressed up their bills in the language of “national security” and “law and order.”

Seeing the anti-immigration tide sweeping the nation, Republican senators are beginning to adopt the “enforcement first” language of the anti-immigration lobby. Majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee describes immigration as a “dangerous national security threat,” observing that the “scariest part” of illegal immigration is that “we have absolutely no idea what they’ll do tomorrow on U.S. soil.”

Seeking his party’s presidential nomination, the majority leader has founded his own organisation called SecureAmericasBorders.com to tap the anti-immigrant surge.

Together with the leading conservative figures, conservative and neoconservative think tanks and policy institutes have jumped into the immigration fray, creating new ideological divides throughout the centre-right. Leading conservative think-tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Hoover Institution, Manhattan Institute, and American Enterprise Institute that previously never addressed immigration issues now have scholars articulating sharply different positions on immigration policy.

On one side stand a minority who, like Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute and Steve Forbes of Forbes Inc, take the traditional Republican position that immigration is good for the economy and that the government should open more legal channels for would-be immigrants. These pro-immigration conservatives now lace their arguments with a strong dose of language about the need for border security and assimilation.

But it’s the anti-immigration camp that has seized control of the ideological and political debate. Out front in defining immigration as a national security threat is Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the neoconservative Centre for Security Policy. After Sep. 11 immigration restrictionists quickly tweaked their anti-immigration message as a pro-security position.

Going a step further, Gaffney, who signed the Jul. 19 conservative statement backing an enforcement-first immigration policy, says stopping immigration flows and deporting unauthorised immigrants are among the “ten steps America must take to prevail in the war for the Free World.”

In his new book, “War Footing”, Gaffney and coauthors tap Cold War rhetoric about Washington’s role in saving the “free world” from “Islamofascists” to bolster the case of the immigration restrictionists. Gaffney argues that immigration policy should be regarded as part of a world war to protect our national security and freedoms.

The border is the southern front of the war to save the Free World, now threatened, according to Gaffney, by the rise of the centre-left in Latin America – a conflict which he says the U.S. is “losing.”

Of pressing concern is the popularity of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is contesting the recent presidential election in Mexico. “Like others of his persuasion, Lopez Obrador’s bid appears to have benefited from financing and help on the ground from his soulmates in Caracas and Havana, who clearly relish the prospect of extending their axis to the border of the United States,” writes Gaffney.

Reminiscent of the warnings of the Cold Warriors about the “red tide” rising in Latin America, Gaffney says that the United States should be on guard today as the left gains ground in Latin America. Arguing for a immigration policy that is on a “war footing,” Gaffney warned in Washington Times op-ed that the “implications of such an outcome could be far-reaching for the integrity of our southern frontier, illegal immigration, drug-trafficking, terrorism, trade and the radical ‘reconquista’ movement (which is intent on ‘taking back’ at least parts of the United States for Mexico).”

The Centre for Security Policy, together with 30 organisations including Roy Beck’s NumbersUSA, Phillis Shlafly’s Eagle Forum, and Paul Weyrich’s Coalitions of America, is spearheading a “Secure America” campaign that asks politicians to sign pledge against liberal immigration policies that “entail real national security risks.”

The pledge stipulates that, “Illegal aliens currently in the United States may be afforded a one-time opportunity to leave the United States without penalty and seek permission to reenter legally if they qualify under existing law. Those who do not take advantage of this opportunity will be removed and permanently barred from returning.”

The Jul. 19 “enforcement-first” letter to President Bush from prominent conservatives illustrates the increasingly broad reach of the anti-immigration movement and the large extent to which it integrates immigration policy with the “global war on terror.” It also highlights the degree to which neoconservatives, who have traditionally been solidly pro-immigration, are joining the restrictionist coalition. Neoconservatives signing the letter included William Bennett, Peter Collier, David Frum, David Horowitz, Michael Ledeen and Daniel Pipes.

Concern about national security since Sept. 11 has enabled restrictionists to move their cause to the center of the political debate. At the same time, many conservative thinkers and leaders are joining the anti-immigration bandwagon in an attempt to forge a new right-wing coalition that will win political power by bringing together grassroots constituencies, military hard-liners, neoconservatives and social conservatives.

*Tom Barry, who writes frequently in immigration issues, is policy director of the International Relations Centre, online at www.irc-online.org