LAMBRO: Drawing the immigration card

While this provision has not been implemented pending judicial review, the court warned, “This opinion does not foreclose other pre-emption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect.”

In the final analysis, the court reinforced a central tenet in the long-running debate over immigration policy: The federal government has primary responsibility over immigration law and policy.

No doubt there will be further legal challenges on immigration law in the future until Congress is ready to take responsibility for this issue and the large number of illegal residents who work and have raised families here.

Clearly, as the stalemate in Congress attests, we are not going to deport all the illegal immigrants who live here.

The argument for blanket amnesty is a strong one and has prevented any solution from gaining majority support. This has resulted in de facto amnesty that will continue for the foreseeable future.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has taken a hard-line stance against any reforms that would allow some illegals to remain in our country.

But Mr. Romney seems to have softened his position lately, suggesting he may support letting children whose parents brought them here when they were very young remain here. He also may support giving a path to citizenship to some illegals who join the U.S. military.

There also is a growing movement among some of the states to allow high school graduates who are the children of illegals to attend college at in-state tuition rates.

Texas enacted a program that allows this, and its GOP-dominated legislature is as conservative as it gets in state politics. Of course, it didn’t help Gov. Rick Perry’s brief presidential bid earlier this year, though other issues also were responsible for ending his candidacy.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also embraced residency reforms for illegal immigrants who have lived here for many years, raised a family, paid their bills and have spotless records. Apparently, it didn’t hurt him in the early primaries when he briefly soared in the polls.

As things stand now, Republicans are going to lose the lion’s share of the large Hispanic vote in November, which is going to Mr. Obama in key swing states that should be GOP territory. This could be the critical factor that decides who sits in the White House for the next four years.

Donald Lambro is a syndicated columnist and former chief political correspondent for The Washington Times.

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