Is the Pick of Sotomayor Worth Trading Immigration Reform

This is a topic that I am noticing Catholic Social Justice Advocates in Catholic Circles are strangely silent on so far.

I think I understand their silence. How this played out was perhaps one of the biggest scandal of the last election cycle. Latinos and other groups might start asking questions of both their religious and political leadership.

Anti Immigration extremist (He is not just against the illegals) Mark Krikorian hits it I have to say on the head.

Hello Sonia, Good Bye Amnesty [Mark Krikorian]

Mickey Kaus notes that my observation that Sotomayor's nomination is a booby prize intended to string along the Hispanic pressure groups in the absence of amnesty has become instant conventional wisdom. Another example from The Hill: "Court pick could buy time on immigration."

Further evidence of the booby prize theory: Amnesty advocates are worried. See this from Daily Kos: "Nomination of Judge Sotomayor is no substitute for immigration reform." And Gebe Martinez writes in Politico:
But as Democrats celebrate Obama’s court move, which underscores Latinos’ political clout, the president is being warned not to assume that this nomination lessens the pressure to meet other demands from the Hispanic community, chiefly on immigration.
Latinos said Tuesday they still expect the president to keep his pledge to deliver a comprehensive immigration reform plan by the end of the year. It is a tough and complicated issue, one the White House would rather avoid.
“I am not going to view one [development] in any way relieving the need or the attention on the other,” said Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) “We need to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform based on the merits of sound economic policy.”
At the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Executive Director Arturo Vargas shut down speculation that the White House might have bought some time on the immigration issue with this nomination.
“We are not a single-issue community,” Vargas said.
05/27 05:45 PMShare

You will note that Doug Kmiec that is talking about Obama and Catholic Social Justice all the time will not bring this up. If he does people might ask him why he was supporting Romney that was beating McCain over the head with this.

As immigration reform advocates knew the time to do immigration reform was 2007. If the democrats got in they would spend capital on Health Care.

As predicted the twenty million living in the shadows will continue to live in the shadows. It was Democrats that helped kill immigration reform no doubt for many political reasons. TO make Bush look bad, to make sure McCain did have a signature win, for Union support etc etc. Our current President played a role in that.

The fact is there is a good chance that immigration reform will be harder to pass in the future not easier. With the economy and other things on Obama's plate such a big item will have to be done in the first two years . Things after 2010 become much more politically radioactive.

This is of course the Symptom of a much bigger disease as Prof Garnett pointed out so well last year:

It seems to be a premise of many of these "for whom should Catholics vote?" discussions that "on every issue that matters, other than abortion, the election of Sen. Obama will actually yield meaningful policy actions that are edifyingly in concert with the Church's social teaching, while the election of Sen. McCain will actually yield meaningful policy actions that are distressingly in conflict with the Church's social teaching."

But, this premise is false. It is false because it ignores, or at least downplays, the political, social, cultural and economic realities that will almost certainly prevent dramatic changes with respect to most matters, and so it overestimates the "good" stuff about an Obama administration that, it is proposed, outweighs the "bad" stuff. It is also false because Sen. McCain's views (or, more precisely, the policies likely to be pursued by his administration) on a number of matters -- not just abortion -- are, in terms of consonance with the Church's social teaching, preferable to Sen. Obama's. Or, so a faithful, reasonable, informed, non-duped, non-Republican-hack, Commonweal-and-First Things-reading Catholic could conclude. It's a sad thought, but . . . I'm not sure that productive conversations -- even among friends -- are possible so long as this false premise is assumed.