First, it bears pointing out that illegal immigration only became a big issue when Dubya’s popularity started flagging, as a result of the Iraq War going badly and the economy slipping into a slump, and that the professed concern about it was whipped up by the same crowd that advocated Dubya’s policies.<\/p>\n
Second, it bears pointing out that about 90% of the rhetoric is about the illegal immigrants themselves (who have been rebranded simply \u201cillegals;\u201d presumably the extra word \u201cimmigrants\u201d had too much danger of humanizing those the Right was trying to demonize). Only a tiny fraction is about the illegal employers<\/em> who give them work, despite it being every bit as illegal to employ an illegal immigrant as it is to become one. (Why aren’t those employers<\/em> being called \u201cillegals,\u201d too?) Remember that the next time one of the anti-immigrant crowd tries to claim they principally care about playing by the rules and obeying the law.<\/p>\n