Columnist Pat Buchanan is not impressed with Indiana U.S. Rep. Mike Pence's illegal-alien offering, which he calls a stealth amnesty plan:
Which brings us to the Pence plan, named for the conservative congressman from Indiana who heads the House Republican Conference and was the 2005 Man of the Year to the conservative Human Events weekly.
In "The Godfather," Don Corleone warns his son Michael that, after he dies, someone inside the family will come to Michael with an offer of peace from the Barzinis, who murdered Michael's brother. Whoever brings you the offer, Don Corleone warns his son, will have betrayed you. Tessio, lifetime friend and high-ranking captain of the Corleones, comes to Michael with Barzini's offer. A mistake.
Rep. Mike Pence appears to have accepted the Tessio role in the great immigration battle of 2006.
As Bush backs away from the Senate bill ("we don't have to choose between the extremes -- there's a rational middle ground"), Pence uses identical rhetoric to describe his plan, now being hailed by Newt Gingrich, Gary Bauer, David Keene of the American Conservative Union and The American Spectator. It looks like the fix is in.
Pence calls his plan a "middle ground" proposal, a "no amnesty immigration reform" in which "securing our border is the first step."
This is fraudulent. At the heart of the Pence plan is amnesty. Illegal aliens here return to Mexico for one week with an assurance they can come back to their jobs. Down there, they visit "Ellis Island Centers" to register as "guest workers" and return with "work permits." The illegal are made legal and put on a path to citizenship.
The only difference between the Pence plan and the Kennedy-Bush amnesty is the one-week vacation employers would happily fund, as it means blanket amnesty for them as well as their illegal hires.
What makes the Pence plan insidious is that Mike Pence has an unimpeachable pedigree. What makes his plan a grave problem is that even Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the Horatius at the Bridge in this battle, is speaking favorably of it.
