Protest march a bad idea

Millions of people are expected to hit the streets today in 90 cities nationwide for the National Day of Immigration Rights.

Do I need to say that this is a really bad idea?

Immigration rights, of course, translates to rights for people who are in this country illegally. If there were no illegal immigration, the House bill provoking so much anxiety among illegals would be a non-issue. At most, it would be an item for idle intellectual discussion. “So, Representative A, if we had some people sneaking into the country illegally, which of course would never happen, but if it did, hypothetically, how do you think these imaginary, non-existent, lawbreakers should be penalized?”

And in addition to the people here illegally and their friends who are demanding improvement to their non-citizen’s rights, the protest has been joined by most of the other perennially-protesting groups. Michelle Malkin has a roundup of protest photos from a kickoff event in Dallas yesterday which featured such luminaries as the Black Panthers and the Che Guevara cultists.

I can see there is emotion on the pro-illegals side of things…it’s been there for some time. But protests like these do not win you friends among the average, disinterested, American voter…they move people from the “do not want to be bothered” column to the “holy crap, this must be a big problem" column. As Americans, we respect our laws; we do not respect those who break them. We tend to side against those who have knowingly broken the law…especially those who have broken the law and then march by the hundreds of thousands to demand entitlements in place of punishment.

If organizers were worried by the backlash of voters against the Senate bill last week, just wait until the fence-sitters get an eyeful of the protests today. Expect another surge of disinterested citizens to realize the scope of the problem, get off their duffs and begin to demand our legislators do something to close the border. The protests only succeed in moving the topic from amnesty/ rights to closing the border firmly. And, as I’ve said before, there should be no discussion about what to do with the illegals here until the BORDER HAS BEEN SHUT!

And I’m not the only person who thinks so. From the Christian Science Monitor story cited above:

"Each time immigrants have these giant rallies, the more they infuriate the rest of the American population with the idea that those who break the law get to march and somehow be rewarded," says Ira Mehlman, L.A. spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform. "We have seen in France what happens when you try to bring in millions of people ... in many cases who are hostile. We saw there that it didn't work, and it won't work here."

And as the protest has roped in many other fringe groups, expect coverage of the marches to include some pretty kooky images to grace our nation’s media, further eroding the credibility of the core cause. Of course, the organizers have learned some things and are advising marchers to leave the Mexican flags at home…they should have learned to accept the status quo rather than taking to the streets and alerting the sleeping American voters to the scope of the problem posed by illegal immigration.

Indifference was their best ally.