The fragile compromise on immigration reform proposed this week by the U.S. Senate has angered conservatives. While many liberals and progressive comentators have also expressed reservations, it is the conservatives who who feel that they have been betrayed by the White House. Click here to read about the major provisions of the proposed reforms.

All sorts of special interest groups are beginning to clamor for changes and revisions.  Whether or not the compromise will continue to hold together is a real question.  It appears that John McCain may be the only Republican candidate to support the immigration reforms.

GOP presidential candidates are especially affected because they need to appeal to far right wing forces in order to obtain a nomination in the Republican Party. The neo-conservative base of the Republican party seems to prefer a solution that would deport all twelve million unregistred residents and their native born children.  So far, McCain, Brownback and Gingrich have all weighed in and found themselves in hot water. Click here for an article from the Washington Post on the Republican split.

Key figures on the right, including conservative talk radio hosts, analysts at the Heritage Foundation and National Review columnists, derided the agreement as a sellout of conservative principles, while GOP presidential candidates criticized the plan as a form of amnesty — a characterization rejected by the White House.  As a side issue, this plan is likely to disrupt relations between Bush and his conservative cronies in congress (what a shame).

Presidenital aspirant, Senator Sam Brownback, an original sponsor of the legislation, has flip flopped to express his new disgust for his bill.  “I would not vote for the same bill,” Mr. Brownback told reporters yesterday morning only hours after having voted for the legislation on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who last year said similar efforts for a comprehensive immigration bill were “reasonable,” called the deal reached this week the “wrong approach” to the problem. “Any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely, as the new Z Visa does, is a form of amnesty,” he said.

It is John McCain (R-Az.) who probably faces the toughest challenge.  McCain’s campaign which has been foundering of late, now has to deal with anger and criticism from the far right. According to several sources, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) got into a shouting match when Cornyn began voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals illegal immigrants could make. After McCain swore at Cornyn and accused him of trying to blow up the pact, Cornyn accused the presidential candidate of “parachuting” into the negotiations at the last minute.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich used the Georgia Republican Convention on Friday to air complaints about a Senate compromise on immigration reform. He called the plan a citizenship “giveaway,” adding, “These inherited bureaucracies do not work.”

Rush Limbaugh has announced his opposition on his radio program.  He believes that this issue “could kill the Republican Party.”  Click here to read more.

Posted on Saturday, May 19th, 2007 at 8:01 am in National News.